12/3/25 DCS School Board Meeting

001field community school and I wanted to address some of the comments that were made at the last schoolboard meeting about teaching math at DCS. Some comments were made about Chromebooks being used as the primary source for math instruction and that students at Deerfield Community Schools should have more access to math manipulatives. I brought some today from my classroom. They're primarily um primarily through two because those are the grades that I have taught but I am happy to provide additional resources also. I did reach out to my colleagues and I asked them how are you teaching math because I it's interesting to know. So I have some pictures for the school board of different grades. I've organized them by grade level. blocked out their babies a little bit, but I really wanted to draw your attention

002to the different grade levels and the different things that you'll see there. Obviously, kindergarten is first, and I wanted you to note that kids are cutting, they are gluing, they are making shapes with popsicle sticks and play-doh. They are doing developmentally appropriate activities. If you flip the page to first grade, you'll see students who are matching different forms of numbers to gain a foundation for place value. You'll see kids cutting and gluing. You can see them organizing groups of 10. And if you flip to second grade, which is the grade that I teach, you will see students who are using pumpkins on Halloween as a map manipulative. We measured the pumpkins. We found the distance around them in centimeters. We made estimates. We scooped all those pumpkin seeds. And you might be surprised to know

003that the largest pumpkins do not have the most seeds. >> You will also see kids um bundling straws. I dumped over a thousand straws on the floor. We bundled them together to make groups of 10, groups of 100, and then a thousand. There are students who are outside measuring lines that are not straight. If they flip to third grade, you see students who are learning about liquids. They are measuring. They are learning about arrays by creating groups. They are also creating haunted houses. It's hard to see, but again, they're cutting and they're pasting and they're gluing. Um, fourth grade, I put the little blurb from Mr. Ferguson because I know that he could describe it in ways that I never could, but he was learning about the metric system. He has students who are using

004grains of rice to represent milliliter, not milliliters, sorry, millimeters. Uh they measured a kilometer. They practiced running it. They are outside. They are learning hands-on. If you look at fifth grade and middle school, you see the same things. And the only Chromebook in any of the pictures is closed on the top right. So, I know that's my three minutes, but I hope that you enjoy the pictures. I am happy to leave my math manipulatives here if you would like to go through them so that you can look at some of the resources that are being used here. But I am going to have to pick them up in the morning because I need them. >> Thank you. Other public comments Stacy Garciani meeting househill road. Um love the math manipulates. Um some of the comments

005about the computer use was not that it was solely on computer but that there was a significant there were computer math station set up for kids while they were on breaks as uh principal Whitney said last week but eliminating the computers from um all of those younger grades would really be uh for learning and curriculum would be brilliant. Um, so I'm here for um a conflict of interest complaint that I filed um earlier this evening against both Nancy Shoot and Ellen O'Donald as being former uh teachers at Deerfield Community School, receiving retirement benefits from the New Hampshire retirement system and the school district and uh perhaps medical health insurance as well through the school district or the SAU. or the retirement system and I I that I don't know about but um I put that

006in. So your conflict of interest policy um states that a conflict of interest is a personal monetary interest that is immediate, definite and demonstrable which may or may not be in conflict which may be in conflict with the public interest. A board member who has a personal or private interest in a matter proposed or pending before the board will disclose such interest to the board will not deliberate on the matter, will not vote on the matter and will not attempt to influence other members of the board regarding the matter. Um, Mrs. O'Donnell and Chute have personal and pecunitary monetary conflicts. They're former teachers at DCS. Uh, they are retired and receive retirement benefits from the school district through the New Hampshire retirement system. Funding of the retirement system occurs through the Deerfield School District and

007SAU 53. Um, both members have voting and negotiating power on the budgets of both SAU 53 and the Deerfield School District. Um, and due to these conflicts, it seems that they should be precluded from voting on the budget um, and negotiating budget matters and perhaps as well from serving on the board. So, I have sent that to you all by email and um, I think there is um, something to be discussed there in terms of peunary interests and conflicts there. Um, in addition, I just wanted to mention uh Vice Principal Griev's comment about $130,000 not being anything significant to the Deerfield School District budget and that it would buy everybody a cup of coffee, which I thought was a little catty and inappropriate and $130,000 in the school budget is significant. And um I'm sure

008he would not want that taken from his salary certainly. So, a cup of coffee. It was a little um like I said caddyy at best and inappropriate. Thank you. >> Other public comments. >> Can I just say one more thing? Sorry. Am I allowed to come back? Um Julie Moscow 137 Herbrook Road. I just wanted to reiterate that um there are learning digital learning standards for the primary grades. For example, in second grade, we do have a writing standard where we are to use um to publish writing using digital um materials like the Chromebook. So, I just wanted to address that one more time that we do have learning standards that require the technology usage. >> Other public comments. Okay, we will move on to board discussion regarding public comments. Um, does anyone have any

009comments about the math manipulatives first? >> No, I mean we stated that we use a lot of manipulatives and and we know that there are technology standards. >> Correct. >> Those are set by the state or >> school. Um, as far as the conflict of interest, I >> we'll have to reach out to legal counsel. >> We'll need to reach out to legal. It's not something we're going to be dealing with tonight. I don't think we could add to the agenda for a discussion without >> Do you want to clear these yet? >> I don't get neither of them take the health insurance. >> We have our own health insurance. >> We also as a board don't get to decide how much money is given to the state for the retirement system. And I think

010my understanding is that as I work that money goes into the retirement fund. I don't think our budget goes into what we put into the retirement funds for teacher service. I don't know about that. Like I'll have to look at the email. I haven't even seen it yet. Um and I'll be reaching out to legal council for actual legal advice. >> We are voting on insurance. We choose >> health insurance for current staff. >> Current staff. >> Correct. >> Yeah. But nobody would get health insurance. Like I paid for my own health insurance for a long time. >> Oh, I thought you had said at the last meeting or maybe the one before that that you had um >> Oh, I did. But I paid for it full in school doesn't pay. >> I got

011rid of it and got a different insurance, but school didn't pay a dime. >> Yeah, but I paid for everything. >> And I've always been on We do not We do not pay retirees any health insurance. I'm a retire. >> Yeah. No part of your budget goes to employees who do not go here anymore. >> Work here. >> So there's no more of the budget that's going into my retirement either because I don't work here anymore. >> It's when we work here. That's why I'm saying I don't think there's anything even on budget that covers it. But you can check with legal for sure. >> Yeah. Um, I will say that I don't think that it needs to preclude any voting on the budget tonight, which we had anticipated doing so that we could get

012the budget to the NBC for next Tuesday as the chair of the NBC has demanded, I will say, multiple times. Um, so we will be getting them the budget on Tuesday. Um, >> and there's been many retired teachers that have been on the board in the past, I don't know how many years, so forever. For the whole time I taught. Yeah. So it's nothing new, >> right? So >> yeah, I don't think that that means that just because it hasn't been brought up before doesn't mean that if you know, >> right? I just personally I don't see anything like my retirement is set. My retirement is based on what I made, how much money I put into it. School doesn't add anything to that retirement. >> Yeah. And I'm not agreeing with that. I was

013just saying just because it's the way that things have been done doesn't mean >> No, I just I think it's fine. And I think we'll get legal opinion about it. >> I just meant I thought someone probably would have questioned it before now if it was a big deal. It's been going on for >> and I'm not going to let it decades stop the >> the calendar that we've already set forth. That has been set forth since the summer with the NBC. I'm not going to let this delay us getting our budget to them because we're not going to be able to get a legal opinion on this until next week. We can't get the NBC budget to them. There's already only four or six days if we use Saturdays to review the MB the

014school portion of the budget at the NBC. So, we're moving forward um as as planned. >> Came up today before the meeting didn't give us any chance to investigate. >> Yeah, I haven't I haven't seen it or read it in full. So, um I mean right someone could make a motion but um okay other public other discussion. Okay, agenda review. So I do have um two additional things to add to the agenda. So under the consent agenda, I'm going to be adding a presentation from the DCS House of Representatives. Um, we did this last year. Unfortunately, it just didn't make the agenda before it got sent out. Um, and then under that for 10, I'm going to have a transportation discussion since Miss Crown is here. We can get her get that discussion going beforehand.

015Um, okay. And then review correspondence. I don't think we had any. Nothing is in the packet and I don't remember any. So I'm going with that. Um consent agenda. We don't have any items. Okay. So we are on to the DCS House of Representatives. >> All right. Hello. Um, my name is Matt McCabe and if you don't know, I teach world cultures at DCS and I'm also the uh adviser for the student government which is called the Deerfield House of Representatives. And this year when we did our campaign for students who wanted to serve on the House of Representatives, I listened to or observed about 50 students give speeches. And one of the things that I saw across many different speeches was several students mentioned their passion for um their ideas of trying to improve

016DCS by initiating fundraisers to get supplies to improve their IIA classes like new art supplies, new PE supplies, new equipment for band and such. And many of the some of the students that are here with us that got elected uh are some of those students who made those pitches. And it was a common theme I heard from many many different students and knowing that you have some really big important decisions uh right in front of you. I offered to them and said hey the the school board's currently in this process of uh identifying budgets and they're talking about this. Do you want to come and present in front of them and they all enthusiastically said they would love to. So they've created a presentation for you that they wanted to share with you to talk

017about their passions and uh what they want to see in terms of their IAS and thought that this might be a useful uh tool for you as you discuss the uh upcoming decisions that you have. So with that I'll let them take the floor. This is on >> Thank you so much for coming. Welcome down. >> Hello everyone and good afternoon. Thank you for taking the time to listen to our presentation on integrative arts or as we call them the IA. >> My name is Dora. >> My name is Janette. My name is Elizabeth. >> My name is Sophia. >> And my name is Emma. >> We are here to we are here before you to discuss the the significant role integrated arts play in student lives and why further budget cuts or cuts on

018IIA teachers should not be implemented. not only does integrated arts promote emotional and creative skills, but it fosters academic improvement and conitive abilities as well. Art and music stimulates both left and right sides of the brain, which enhances skills in >> arithmetic language arts and spatial spatial awareness. students that partake in a fine art and higher graduation rates and reportedly do better. Um, more specifically, music activates both sides of the brain, reinforcing mathematical and linguistic skills through pattern recognition and spatial awareness. Whereas art helps us work through emotions, promotes creativity, and builds a oops a deeper understanding and connection of the world, which links to history, literature, math, and science. Physical education releases hormones that uh promote brain cells growth which leads to improvement memory and reflection. Phys physical education also allows students to have

019freedom of choice when selecting which sports and activities they will learn and take part in. When kids have ownership over their learning and are more likely to remain active and remain and retain what they learn. Phys physicality is challenging activity. >> Physically physically >> physically challenging activities. Not only strengths muscle >> strengthens muscles and enhances motor skills but to it improves brain function. This can help students excel in problem solving, critical thinking technique, and even impulsive. As you can see, integrated arts not only plays a big emotional role in students lives, but can also help students excel in their academics as well. Integrated arts classes have are essential to our school, even if people say they don't always realize it. These classes let us use different parts of our brains and express ourselves in ways

020regular academic classes don't. Our rotating schedule helps keep the day interesting and makes school feel more balanced. PE gives us a chance to move and reset after sitting all day, helping us focus better and feel less stressed. Our class lets us be creative, trying new types of art and pushing us to be open-minded and find different ways to express ourselves. Music is especially meaningful. In band, I play the flute. It makes me feel confident and proud. Learning to learning new songs and performing at concerts motivates me and I love showing my family what I've learned. Playing an instrument helps me relax and band is helpful me has helped me find a strong community. If I classes were cut or minimized, students would have fewer ways to express themselves, fewer stress breaks, and fewer chances to

021discover talents. School would feel more tiring and less balanced. IAS aren't extra. They're essential for keeping us healthy, creative, confident, and connected. As you can see, we have data up here from questions we asked students in kindergarten through third grade. Only 8.1% of students in K to 3 said that the integrated arts don't make them happy. If I get a teacher cut or the budget significant significantly reduced that's nearly 92% of the students grades K to three that'll be significantly impacted by it. We also asked them asked them if I were if I were cut or minimized, would they still want to come to school? Over 60% of students said they would not want to come. Yes. Um to school if I were cut or reduced. That's a lot of students that wouldn't feel motivated

022and happy coming to school. Um moving on to the student data from fourth to 8th grade. We asked students if integrated arts program helps them feel connected to the school. Nearly 70% of the students said the IIA help them feel connected and more at home. um when they're at school if I are reduced or cut um entirely that is 70% of the students that that may not feel connected and have community within the school anymore. >> We also asked students if the IAS reduced or cut would they still desire to come? Over half the students said they would no longer want to come to school if I were cut or reduced. This just proves that so many students have found an IIA program to be a huge part of their time at school. Um, after

023reviewing comments that students have made regarding the art program here at DCS, we have noted that over 70% of students in grades four through eight um, selected this as their favorite IIA. Additionally, a lot of students brought up the common theme that art is a relaxing IIA that encourages and sparks creativity within the student body. We included some direct quotes from students here regarding art and how it makes them feel. If you could take a moment to look at that. I am pronounc >> um integrated arts have greatly affected my friends and me during our time here at DCS. Um, I started Deerfield Community School eight years ago and one thing has been consistent. I liked art. Whether fingerpainting with my grandparents or accidentally staining the floor with splatter paint. I always had art in

024the back of my mind. One summer, I got exceptionally good at drawing people and created fictional characters. When the world got too scary or boring, I could just float back to the fictional world I had created from my drawings. Art helped me create pictures of my favorite TV show characters, ideas I've had for years, and alter 3D projects to express who I am perfectly. Art has changed my life in so many ways that I can't even put it into words. The different teachers I've had have impacted me differently. Um, Mr. German who taught me a proper word ratios and art pieces. Miss Pim has encouraged me in several ways. And Miss Chase taught me how to draw fire heads and so much more. Art has impacted my life in the most positive way possible, and

025it would devastate me if it were to be cut significantly or minimized. Um, after I looked over the responses people left regarding the music program here at BCS, I found that a lot of students found that music class, whether it be band, chorus, or general music, is a place where they can feel free to express themselves, release pent up energy, and foster their creativity. As someone who is very actively involved in the music program, I can confidently say that this is true. Again, we have included some direct clo some direct quotes from the students from students speaking on their music program here and how it has influenced their time here. Please take a moment to look at this. Um, I have been going to DCS for nearly a decade now, and in all my time

026here, music has been one of the most important and consistent influences. I love music. I feel it deeply and intimately to the point where it can chill me to the bone or make me feel the most exhilarating joy. That's what's so great about it. It brings out the good, bad, beautiful, ugly, joy, and grand dreams within you. Music is raw energy and passion, and raw energy and passion feeds the soul. Within the music program, I found one of the most important parts of my life. found amazing people, mentors, and friends, and discovered a profound sense of passion. I joined my school's band as a flute player just because my friends joined. And that is one of the most best and that is one of the best choices I've made yet. I've made the accomplishment um

027of making it to multiple statewide music festival, being nominated for a festival, learning to play the piccolo, and more. If it weren't for music, I I likely wouldn't be here today. People haven't always been there for me, but music always has been. When looking back at the responses received from physical education, a a common response and theme is that PE is a good way to learn about your body and exercise. >> Please take a moment to look at some of the feedback and comments students made regarding class year. The integrated arts has affected my classmates and me in many different ways. In my elementary years, I was afraid of standing in front of people while singing all to all the adults. When I was in fifth grade, I joined band, which is an opportunity that

028all fifth graders in middle school for middle schoolers. If you got rid of one music teacher, it would be really hard to coordinate fourth graders while singing while graders singing while the band plays. Nothing would get done because you if you have if you remove one teacher, it affects them all. This applies to PE and art too. In In PE, we are doing we do rock climbing. If you take one teacher from the gym, the remaining teacher and students will get confused. What if you're supposed to what if you're supporting a student halfway up the rock wall and another one gets hurt? You can't you cannot just leave um this one student hanging or let an injured student wait. What if uh the student is really badly injured? You need two teachers. The same applies

029for art class. I'm paired with my younger brother who is in fourth grade. If you are teaching something to sixth graders and a fourth grader and a fourth grader might think that they have to do it and get a higher grade than everyone else in their in their grade which isn't fair or get confused. Library and reading is one of the fundamentals of education. If library is reduced or cut, many students may end up struggling with literacy. Not only this, but many students have found that reading is a calming and educational activity. Cutting funds for the library would mean there would be less resources for students to use, less books, and less fun in class. >> Also, our library teacher, Mrs. Moff, who also happens to take on the role of being our media literacy

030teacher. Um, in today's culture and society, media literacy is such an important thing to be aware and educated about. If funds are reduced in the library, it will also affect our ability to learn media literacy. Um, we have collected more quotes coming directly from students here at DCS. It is important to hear their voices as well as ours. If you could just take a moment to read these, I'm going to swap the slide. >> Yes. These are our sources cited regarding the research we put into our academic impact integrated arts have had on our students. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the Deerfield Student House of Representatives today as you finalize your budget. We appreciate all the work you do for our school. We hope our perspective helps you understand how important

031integrated arts are to the students here. These classes make a real difference in our lives and we are grateful for the chance to share why it matters so much. Thank you for considering our voices as you make as you make decisions for our school's future. Thank you so much for the presentation. It was so brave. You guys did such a great job. >> I really appreciate it. Does anyone have any comments or questions for our House of Representatives? >> Very impressed with you guys being able to come up here and speak in front of a whole group like this. I know when they presented to us obviously a different group last year I said the same thing is that a group of I don't what are they sixth through 8th grade >> I know I

032couldn't do that at that age that's for sure >> great job thank you guys so much for coming it really helps to hear um from people at the school so that's great thank you >> okay >> thank you >> we will move on to transportation the house of representatives are welcome to stay but you also It's a school night. It's a school night. >> Okay. >> She spelled it wrong last time. I'm sure there is much to be discussed about transportation, but what where would you like to start? >> Talking about you guys had requested >> Yeah, you had requested bus in numbers. So, um the snow yesterday didn't really help. Um, I can say that I think a request that Kelly and I would have from you is to do bus numbers if you're

033looking at the transportation and where you want to go with buses somewhere towards the end of October, beginning of November before budget season comes out. Um, it's kind of a good break between sports. I've talked with Mr. Griev about this kind of like when there's a break between like fall sports and starting in the winter sports time frame because there's that shift in kids. Um, so and some kids are staying for practice, some kids are coming later. If soccer is done and they're not going to a championship, those kids are back on the bus. So, it's a we have a higher variety of students riding within that two week window period. Um, and we don't have snow days to um encounter. So, these are our numbers. Um, again, they're taken during um Thanksgiving time. So,

034I'm sure there were some families that were gone like Monday and Tuesday or left early one day or whatever and then the snow day yesterday. So, I gave these to you, left them on your desk um earlier so I wouldn't have to walk around. Um so, these are where we are with numbers. I did um the six DCS buses and the three current high school buses as well. Um CO Brown did have a half day on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the driver gave me her numbers for that day. I just kind of put them underneath the grid um there. So, this is kind of where we're at. I think Mr. grief said that they have like 150 cars in the morning. Um but again like our kids coming with sports equipment, everybody has mornings

035where they miss the bus and parents got to drive them or life happens. So, did you say this week is representative of higher than normal or >> um I can't speak on behalf of the DCS buses because I this was the first week I've really driven here this week because I'm training a new driver um to cover for the orange driver. Um as far as the two comfort buses, um we are running numbers are lower than we had projected in the fall. Um again, when the survey went out, I think parents signed up for the bus just to make sure they had a seat. We've had a large number of kids that got their licenses and secured their own vehicle and parents are obviously paying for insurance um on for those kids to drive because

036we have a number of kids. We also had eight kids leave the bus that transferred to Cob Brown from Conquered um that had signed up for the bus that we knew were going to be riding. Um I know these families in town and so I knew they were going to be on the bus. So there's eight of those students are not accounted for on the conquer buses, but it will reflect in the in the co- brown bus. Um what we do find with the high school buses is oftent times parents use it like a taxi a matter of convenience. Um based on a variety of of things whether it be sports whether um a friend is going to school to stay so they throw their kid on the bus for the morning and they might

037have a sport in the afternoon or whatever. So we still find our numbers are fluctuating. There has been days um where the other concrete driver and I I mean I've driven up there with seven or eight kids on the bus. It's a really low morning. Does it happen all the time? No. I mean the numbers reflected here for the week. We were in the teens, but there are those rare mornings that we do have low numbers. So we could, you know, we could consolidate if Kelly needed us to go drive in another town, which has happened. Um you know, if our numbers are low, she'll kind of reach out to us and say, "Can you help cover?" >> Is that an option? Can we consolidate to one bus? >> I don't know that's an option

038now. I don't know how your contract reads um what the current contract reads and how the SAU and SCA would want to work on that. That's above my pay grade. So, I don't get involved with that. >> Yeah. Something to think about is if we could allocate that bus like if we're contractually obligated to that like having that bus, you know, run through them, can we allocate that to GCS? So it would also be a matter of um changing the route. So >> it would that would affect some parents as well um where we've established the route. So that's just something to consider. Um one thing Kelly and I want to say is that it's it's not to be it's important not to be hasty to cut an item from the budget because it's even

039harder to get it put back in. So um but as a board we understand that you guys are obligated to be conscientious of the budget. So that's, you know, we're kind of talking on both sides of our hands and we understand that, but we're just being honest with you guys. The other thing, too, when we decided on the buses this year and to have one go to Cob Brown, didn't we put some stipulations on the seating of it to begin with? >> So, we did. So, we we did um freshman and special ed were the priority because it was to get rid of that um special ed bus going to CO Brown. >> Um and then we kind of opened it up once we secured the freshman kind of open it up to the sophomores

040and then juniors and seniors. >> Um with activities going on and stuff again that bus the numbers fluctuate as well. Um I think also another thing to to really think about with these high school buses as bus passes. um we kind of talked about a little bit last fall, but I think going forward we need to have this um I can't be at both high schools obviously to know all the kids. Um we did have a situation where I had the LEA from the SA reach out to me recently um with a counselor from CO Brown requesting of a student to ride the bus. Um that was back on um 11:5 I received the email and since 11:5 the student has ridden three times and but the guardian of the child told the LEA rep

041that it would be a daily AM and PM. So again using it like a taxi service but holding a seat now. >> But there is an open seat. It's not >> there is there was an open seat, right? So, we did allow the child to ride, but since 11:5, I mean, you really, it's been a month. She's ridden three times. >> I mean, I think one thing that the board could think about, and we've talked about this before, we've never done it, is having because it's not obl we're not obligated to provide transportation, >> right? >> We could high school. >> High school, right? Correct. >> Kate, yes. We could have a fee if they wanted to ride to high school, which might incentivize people to actually use the >> Sure, you could charge for

042the bus passes. It would be some revenue. You know, you could do it by the semester. Um because, you know, some sophomores maybe they need it in the fall, but they're going through driver's ed. So, come January, whenever that's that flip is, um maybe they're getting a license and they're not going to be in the bus anymore. So, mom and dad don't need to spend the money on the bus pass. So that's an option as well. Or you just issue 51 bus passes to the, you know, to 51 kids and that's it. If you don't have a bus pass, you don't ride. >> And then if there's a wait list, for instance, >> would we come up with some sort of if you haven't ridden the bus for two weeks, >> sure, >> giving your

043bus pass to someone else. >> We could create whatever. It doesn't it doesn't seem like based on the numbers that we need to have two CHS buses. >> I think going forward, I mean, whether you change it this year or you want to reflect that for next year, I think we absolutely could. Um the current juniors, they'll be seniors next year. We do have a handful of those kids that are still riding the buses for um I'm guessing financial reasons that those students are not getting in a car. >> Sure. >> Um so we're obligated with those students next year. Um we can probably work with CHS and get those names. um and stuff. We know I know the students as well and you know just to confirm that they will need the car the

044I mean the bus next year is something we can certainly um look at but we need to make sure that if you guys do cut a bus next year to conquer high when we're looking at the special ed and the freshman that we look at these seniors because these will be the ones that will be getting a seat for even a sophomore. >> We I mean combined that's 30 the highest number on here is 31. We still can fit 21 more students, >> right? Are you looking at um a conquer bus or the co-ound bus? >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Oh, so that's just that's one bus. So that's 31 and then plus the other one. >> And we know we know enrollment is down um for conquered next year. I I is it still

045only 17? Have you the other six families? Have they decided Mrs. Wy on? >> I don't think so. the other six families >> four all four and they've been emailed again we we're budgeting them for co just because it's the most expensive >> sorry I just missed that because I was just trying to figure out that math was um we how many are budget I I know in here we have 10 for for right now how many were >> I think we had 17 in there >> they were 17 for conquered I didn't know if the numbers had changed and then 31 for co hour >> no I'm sorry I'm talking number of buses total. >> Oh, in for in the budget we have two for conquered currently. >> Yeah. So there's 10 total 10

046total buses. Yes. >> So that that's one additional. >> Correct. >> That's one addition. That includes the additional high school bus for Cobra. Yes. >> So So in terms of cutting a bus, we're actually not increasing the budget or or we're not um cutting a budget spot out. We're actually adding one because we have nine buses budgeted. >> So 10 is an additional. >> So if we got rid of one CHS bus, then we're we're just not increasing the budget. We're not cutting it. >> I think we have 10 buses budgeted. >> Yeah. But he's saying if we if we take away one high school bus and bring it here and seven would still have 10 buses. >> We we currently have seven budgeted for DCS and two for high school. No, we have three.

047There's three for high school >> budgeted for next year, right? So, if we cut the high school, >> it's in this year's budget with 10 buses total, >> right? We took the extra bud. We took the extra bus because we only had nine buses once we had the driver certified and licensed. You took the extra DCS bus and made it a co- brown bus to keep that >> which is the nine >> which has nine buses still in for for the projected for next year in the budget that we're working on talking about right now. So that would be increasing an additional bus 9 to 10. >> Yes. >> Correct. >> Right. But it's already in the budget. It's not >> it's not in the budget. >> Not in this year's budget. >> 10 buses

048in this year's budget. High school transportation for 2526 was 273 which is three buses and then >> for high school was 598 which I think is six buses seven buses the other way around >> what we end up >> that's right in default right you're right so we cut the bus now from this budget. They do that tonight. >> That's correct. So, we did So, last year the proposed budget moving forward was to go down to nine buses, >> but we ended in default. So, it goes back to 10. So, there is currently 10 as Miss Wy was saying in the budget because we went to default. We tried to cut a bus and reduce our budget, but it failed. It went to default. So, we couldn't we went bad. We defaulted to the line.

049>> So, why would there be 10 there? Three for high school. That's what it was. >> Right. It used We used to run three buses to conquer. >> Well, when we could >> when we could, right? >> And there's only been two that I've known of. Yeah. >> Since co >> when my kids were going to conquer, the buses were full. >> Yeah. >> Because that was the only school. And I think it was only 22% of the kids from here went were allowed to go to Cob Brown or something like that. It was like a weird percentage of the eighth grade class. >> Four kids, three kids. So the proposed budget for next year is essentially the default budget for transportation. >> But we could change >> you could change it if and if

050it pass if the budget passed, >> right? >> But if it doesn't, it defaults back to >> the 10. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. I didn't realize that the default was 10 because I thought it was seven and two high school. >> Right. So that was like a big argument like two years ago. We cut a bus >> and then people were encouraging people not to vote for the operating budget was lower >> because the default budget had three high school buses. >> It's all coming back to me. Yes. Right. >> It's all coming back to me, right? >> So, we can make decisions, but who knows what will actually happen. But I still think it's worthwhile to consider because that would lower our budget >> and doesn't look like it's the bus we're

051going to need, >> right? And we're still having problems with we have to get a driver for DCS buses, right? >> Well, if you >> I'll use myself. If you cut a high school bus, then you'd be putting me out of a job. So then I couldn't pick up the seventh bus. >> Well, don't say it like that. >> Well, that's that's easy to say. Amy, you're hired. >> You already told me >> that means you could pick up you could pick up the seven seventh bus for DCS which would actually take >> and that's providing all the current drivers come back. >> Yeah. >> So, there's that. sometimes. >> And that is a problem right now with the six buses because we have kids having to takes them an hour to get to school,

052which is pretty crazy for little guys. >> Yeah. Extremely crazy. It's bad enough for high school kids. But >> do we know I assume we've had like seven buses at one point. Do we know how long the routes were when there were seven buses? >> They were close to between one was only 35 minutes and I think the longest one was around 40 45 minutes >> with seven buses. with seven buses and it's only because and I think it was the pink bus because it's going up Mount Road coming back down and then going up to Nottingham and coming back down because it they are and then you are the problem. Um and then circling around it used to cover on um Coffee Town Road. So it used to cover like that section of town.

053>> Got it. And then there was a bus that just went up to um went up 43 just to the northwood line came back down and then went to Dale's internal came back down and that was only like a 35 minute bus ride. >> So, but again it's the eb and flow of students too, >> right? >> Because would we travel coffee town if we didn't have anybody on there? We wouldn't. What grade level is coffee town right now? >> Oh, I don't know. I want >> I'm just wondering how many more years. >> Yeah. Right. >> That always That's ever changing. >> That's true. >> Okay. >> So, you guys, >> we have to make a decision. I mean, I can I can sit here and answer any questions you guys might have, but

054at the end of the day, it's it's a decision that you guys have to make and the budget passes and that's what we'll be. >> Where was it? We have the uh the numbers for um program versus >> we have 30 currently 32 in 19. It's gone up one for each and we're waiting for >> and one for and there's canon on the front this front page it gives you the totals down below. >> So if you look at the high school tuition lines breaks down what the current enrollment is each of the schools. So we we still will have a few more kids at conquered but it's getting closer to 5050. Yeah. >> Well after next year. I forget the other chart that you had but the other chart shows it very clearly. The

055seniors obviously what will happen. >> Yeah. It'll be trending the other way. Okay. Um does anyone want to make decisions right now? Should we talk about in the budget or do you want to do it? Does anyone want to propose something? >> Yeah, I think it's I mean I think it's crazy to run those two conquered buses. >> I think if anything we don't need two conquered buses next year. Uh, I do think we should give preference to the seniors and to the freshman and special ed students and then if there's extra room, we could >> that's just a policy. Maybe we have to make that a policy. I don't know. >> I mean, I think we could just make that a >> mean I think that makes sense. >> Yeah. >> The ones that

056have >> the ones who obligate us next year. >> Yeah. Not always. Not like forever. We need to make that. >> No, I don't think so. Yeah. Um, but I think fourth next year since they, you know, were the last class that didn't have a choice of where they went to high school, >> right? And they did have transportation at the time. >> So, if you reduce a conquered bus out of your budget, it's going to reduce your budget by $93,434. >> That's a big number. That was 93,434. >> So, you're not out of a job. You're just moving. >> So, and speaking of that, so I did put numbers under the CBNA on the last page. Um, with your six buses, um, somebody had mentioned about having enough if we had to do an

057evacuation for an emergency. With the six buses holding 77 students, it came six buses only holds 462. Seven buses would carry 539 students. That's no adults. It's just getting the kids away from here in a fashion if we ever had to. So, >> and that is our emergency response plan, I think, is that we bust them to correct somewhere. >> Yeah. >> So, um I mean that would typically happen during the day. Is that a high school bus that you can use for the bus? >> It would be. It could be. I mean, it could be anybody at the yard. You know, we have we have one driver that lives in Lowden. It would be hard for her to get here. We have another one that um is in Hookset and Parks in Allentown. Um

058the other high school driver and I, we both live here in town. So, like if they can't get those drivers here, they would reach out to myself, the other high school drivers um that live here in town and see if we could get here because we would be faster than the regular six buses. >> We always I don't remember that we had six buses when we used to. Maybe we did when we practiced it because it was planned ahead. >> We did. It was planned ahead and we did all seven of us had shown up here. We do we do like three kids to a seat too. >> Yep. >> So just food for thought. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean it would be my preference personally just to have seven DCS buses um since we

059are obligated to ride transportation for DCS. And if we can, you know, shorten people's bus rides, I think that would be a benefit to to the students for sure. >> And I feel like we're really doing good faith by giving each high school a bus. I mean, I think that's definitely good faith to help out with, you know, kids, especially, you know, especially since it's something you don't have to do, right? That's definitely helping out, >> right? And that's it goes back to what we talked about with establishing ridership, you know, preference. It's going to start to become where it may end up being like enough freshman and sophomores, >> not need, but could use the second, >> you know, CBNA bus. We have to, you know, establish that before that becomes, you know, those

060numbers go that way. in that work, >> right? And the parents know that there's they're guaranteed a bus for freshman, maybe not for sophomore. I mean, they can make plans. I mean, at least they have time to make plans. >> so now looking at the um conquered bus numbers, would you be open? I mean, if there's got less than five kids that go to Penrook Academy, if they were parents wanted to get those kids on the bus on the way on that conquered bus, is that something you'd consider? >> Oh, because it's on the way. I mean I if we had extra spaces I would say numbers. >> Yeah. Yeah. Right. But if we combine them then we're getting closer >> the roots we both go by there now the way the roots are >>

061go right by >> but how would that work with um like the drop off times and everything that >> so in the morning I'm passing um PA probably right around 7 o'clock in the morning. I I just we would because TA doesn't have buses that go there. >> No. >> Right. >> So it would be a unique situation. >> Oh, so you could just drop them off. >> Well, I I would have to establish a place to drop them off safely because I can't hold up traffic of parents going to work because I think PA opens early for parents who do early drop off. So, and I'm not sure that they want a bus pulling into the inner circle >> during parent drop off either. So, we'd have to establish a place where >> Yeah,

062we have a system. you think it would be okay to get a bus in there? So, >> just a just a thought just because you're doing it for the two occasions and it's right on the way. >> Yeah. As long as it would still be on the way, >> it would be and and the same thing in the afternoon like we could we could facilitate the route to go past PA initially and pick up the student students that need to be a ride home, pick them up and then comes into your field through Bearbrook. The only thing that would make me >> nervous about it is just >> we'd really have to get specific about this wrership program because >> right >> potentially this could you know some kids may want to go to PA

063then it's like you know >> but that's your school choice. >> Yeah. >> No no I know but I'm saying in terms of like saying like okay now some of these concrete sophomores are not able to ride the bus anymore freshman can. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? So that's the whole thing is that's why I said we have to get specific about and establish it across the board like ground >> but we need to do it across the board. >> So if you if you're serious about that then I it might be worth readjusting your transportation policy and creating it actually adding it to your policy then if you're saying that you want a ridership. >> I was going to mention the policies because some of them are like haven't been updated.

064One of them is like from 2004. >> Yeah. Yeah. They're on the list. >> Yeah. Not sure. >> Okay, >> we're going down the list. >> It's on there. But that might be worthwhile to say that, you know, we will guarantee transportation for freshman, you know, first come, first serve or whatever. Um, and then as spots open up for sophomores and beyond. You guys want >> I can have that. I can bring that. >> It's okay. It's okay to put in the policy. Special ed students >> priority given to identif Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah, we just wouldn't identify who they are. >> On a first come, first serve basis. >> Yeah, we can I can bring that for the next board meeting. >> Potentially that could fill up a bus and those sophomores could ride

065it out, >> right? >> But that that's >> and that was pretty much the case for Coburn almost. >> Yeah. So, >> and I like the idea of uh them needing a an ID, a card or something just so that the bus drivers know that these are kids should be getting on the bus. I don't think I want to charge them for it at this point. I don't feel comfortable with that. >> I'm happy to not charge them, but wearing they should have something to wear so that you guys don't have to. >> I do think if we if it is it becomes a situation where we have a huge waiting list for instance and we don't have >> people you know saying I don't need the bus anymore. I will give up my spot.

066Um then I think we could consider it. But >> also I think if we do end up in default and have the 10 buses um maybe we offer that that paid the paid ridership if there are going to be so if there's still 10 in the budget can we still just do one and one or do we have to send oh okay >> yeah so you can still we can still make decisions about you know how we on a staff thing. >> It just becomes frustrating because your practices aren't reflected in >> your budget. >> No, I was just thinking that if we had to run that other cost, then we could charge for it being, >> you know, kind of extra help. >> Yeah. I would caution doing a mixture of like charging and

067not charging. I think you'd want to do like a unified practice across the board. >> Um because >> Right. For high school. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then we we might want to consider something like if you don't use the bus for two or three weeks, whatever you choose, you need to pick up your card and if if there is a waiting list and then the next person on the waiting list gets your pass or something. >> But I don't want to discourage kids from playing sports either because I don't want >> I think we have to really take some time to look at that because I don't want to push kids who play >> like soccer and stuff in the fall because a lot of those kids we don't honestly see them until November,

068>> right? >> So why aren't they going in the morning then? Some of them have older siblings. Some parents that work in conquered. I mean, we do have kids that take the bus in the morning, then they have the two backpacks. And then there are some kids that get a ride to conquer in the morning through however they play a sport in the afternoon. And then once soccer, I'm using soccer as an example. Once soccer's over, they start showing up on the bus in the afternoon. >> Right. Because they don't have that parent, >> Right. >> Okay. I'll add the transportation policy to the packet for next time that discussion if you want. Um, okay. I will just say if anyone wants to make a motion about the budget, we should just do it during

069the budget discussion probably. But anyone else have questions for Amy while she's here. >> Thank you so much. >> Um, all right. We are on to immediate business board norms table. >> I know. >> So that was something that came out of the New Hampshire board conference that I went to. So some of the I wrote down some of the norms that um different boards have used. They often said it's good to not have too many. Maybe just have three, you know, maybe post them on your agenda or even mention them at the beginning of each meeting, whatever. But these were some of them. Um, work together and be collaborative. Assume good intentions. I personally really like that one a lot. Be present and prepare for the meeting. Challenge the issue, not the person. Be

070respectful. Um, and then they just added like have fun. I don't need that to be a norm. Um, and somebody said, "Resolve uh the issue in the meeting, not in the parking lot." But we can't do that anyway in the parking lot because, you know, can't have three. That would be illegal. So, um, >> the cars together. >> So, I don't know. Personally, you guys talk about it. I would say probably the ones I like the best are the working together, being collaborative, assume, good intentions, and be present and prepared. Those are probably the three I like the best. I do like be respectful too, but um >> kind of >> it kind of goes collaborative or whatever. >> Oh, and also assume good intentions. >> That's what I really like that one because that's

071you know the person don't assume that the person's doing it to be mean or cruel or whatever. Um so what do you guys think? >> Yeah. Yeah, I like them. >> Yeah. Yeah, sure. I like I like all of them. >> All right. Would you guys be okay? We could do like um I don't know the um challenging issue, not person. >> I do like that one. >> Okay. So, I guess the top I mean I like the top five, but I don't know. Five's too many. Do you want me to read? >> Sure. Somebody might have something else. I feel like I feel like it just that was deja vu >> something I read my grandkids I can remember oh I know it's like Fifi and Poohoo it's a picture book do you want

072me to say their names again sorry I do it's a very cute book um work together and be collaborative assume good intentions be present and prepared for the meeting challenge the issue not the person be respectful those are probably I the top five. >> Let me think if if technically we wanted to say, well, we only want like three or something. I think the be respectful ties in with >> assuming good intentions. >> You could say assume good intentions and be respectful. >> Yeah. Could become one. >> Okay. What do you guys think? I I guess it doesn't I I kind of unless we need to get down to fewer. I kind of like them the way they work. Just like please be respectful. I I just I kind of like that they kind of

073they kind of hit on their own. >> Yeah, I I like the five too. I agree. They're a little bit nuanced, a little different each one. >> Um Yeah. So then we would print them on the agenda. >> Yeah. put we could put them on the agenda so they're there like maybe a little box on the agenda or something. We don't have to you know some boards say them at the beginning of each meeting norms you know. >> So usually like a facilitator or the chair would say when you call a meeting to order >> um you would say remind everyone of your five norms for the meeting. >> We used to do that. Yeah we used to do that. We'd always go through the norms before the meeting started just to remind everybody. Um,

074it's nice to go through it, too, because then the public hears it as well. So, they know that we're considering that in our So, you probably wouldn't have to have it on the agenda if you say it each time. Have it on the agenda. >> I think it's fine. >> Okay. Yeah, I think those five sound good. >> Okay. Well, they're in my notes. So, um the notes that I did on the New Hampshire delegate assembly, which was in the last meeting. Okay. >> Yeah, they're right there. It's the first five. So, are you formally adopting this? >> Do we need a vote or can we do it by consensus? >> It's up to you. >> Yeah. I mean, it's not like a ruler consensus agreement >> are comfortable with that. We can do that.

075>> It's been along with you. >> It certainly has. Uh you said from the last meeting. >> Yeah, from the last meeting they were in there and Trish has got them right now. >> Okay. >> Um okay. So we can start that for the next uh agenda. >> I'll try to remember if >> I'll just put it right on the agenda so you'll just catch. >> Well, thank you guys because I really appreciate that you were open to them because I think there's such a great idea to come get everybody on the same page. So you have to read them each week though. >> What's that? >> You have to read them each week. >> I'll do it. >> We'll call you Norm. Uh, all right. Budget review. All right. So, Amber printed out uh

076another cleaned up version of the summary changes from last time. Um, there were just a handful of updates that were added. Um, your little summary packet is where those updates live. So on the first page, there was some changes to high school tuition uh based off of the numbers that were updated from Miss Whitty where we knew kids were going. Uh so Amber added those in. Um transportation decrease was based on the uh contract that you decided to go with last time. So those numbers were finalized and put into the budget. So you'll notice a change there. >> I did have a question. Sure. Did we um like sign that contract already or? >> Not yet. >> Okay. >> I did, you know, I was really thinking about the comment you made about the um

077the cost of diesel >> and I was thinking, you know, Amber says that she does that negotiating. Yes. >> I think that it's definitely worth >> Okay. That was my that was really my only concern that I wanted to make sure you guys noticed because >> well I just know that like you know like at PJs I'm paying like 330 >> for diesel but if you buy it in bulk >> sure >> you know what I mean like I was I didn't think that maybe that was that far off but at the same time >> it does you know you know it hasn't spiked in like two years really like >> I know but you know how volatile that can be scares me I mean >> just in my own personal life having to fill

078up a fracture is scary. >> Yeah. >> Okay, I will do that. >> So I don't forget. Okay, we'll do that. And then on page two, um, benefit changes, uh, based on some solidified numbers that we had gotten in. Um, and then food service update. >> I thought the healthcare came in less than what we had originally budgeted for. >> Yes, but you guys had voted on a percent increase for staff for non-certified staff last time. And so these benefits reflect the changes >> the non-certified staff as well as the savings we got from healthare. I was thinking this was healthare. It's not healthare. >> No, this one isn't. No, this is >> this is like your FICA insuranceances, things like that >> which is dependent on salary, >> right? Correct. >> But shouldn't we

079I don't see it here. Is that >> because we reflected it last time. >> Oh, >> because we knew it coming into it. >> Okay. >> Because we got our numbers early enough for Deerfield. Yeah. >> And we were able to adjust the budget before we came in last time. You say last time, you're talking about >> last meeting. >> No, the school care numbers. We were able to get those in ahead of time um enough that we Amber was able to go in and adjust the school care costs for the actual I think you guys were like 9% like 12, >> right? So, she had already adjusted that because we knew what our numbers were coming in. So, that was already reflected in the last uh draft of the budget. So, and then the

080food service increase is also reflecting the um non-certified staff increase that you guys had voted on last time. And that's really it. There really hasn't been any other changes other than those couple of things from last time. So, any adjustments you guys make tonight, um I tried to um have Amber prepare anticipated costs for things. because I know you guys were considering. So, I'm hoping I have numbersish for you. Um, if you have a request or make a motion to cut something or add something, I can hopefully give you an estimated cost of what that will be for tonight. Okay. Okay. So, if we So, I just want to see if I've got this straight. On the very last page, page 24, if you look at what the total proposed budget is right now, what

081we have out there, we're at 20 million 5136, right? And then the proposed default budget is 2776. So we're about 180,000 more. Yeah. So yes and no. So the confusing part is this also includes warrant articles. So because we have to total appropriate, we have to budget in warrant articles. And so if you go to your cover sheet, it takes those out and gives you the actual like increase. So the overall increase in your budget um is 469,871. So it's 2.27%. with the majority of that being um your CDA. >> But the difference between the proposed and default is is remains the same. >> What you'll be 260 is taken out of both of those. >> So the proposed default will be the 20 million. >> I'm just saying that because I'm thinking about the

082Warren article and people voting on the budgets. Mhm. >> They're going to look at the number for the proposed and the number for the the uh >> we hope. >> Right. Well, yeah, we hope. We hope. Um doesn't always matter what they vote for, but I think at this point I'd like to move that we reduce the high school bus. >> Yeah, I'll second. >> I You don't have to agree with me. I would recommend that you not put on high school buses just because your wife is a driver of high school bus. You're just talking just >> so does somebody else second my motion? >> I will second. >> You cannot hear reducing the budget. So >> I recommend you specify which high school bus because CBNA and conquered are different costs. >> I

083So I I move that we reduce one of the conquered high school buses. >> Well, so there was already a second. So do you want to just remove resend your motion and then do it? and my all right and I move that I fully remove one of the conquered high school buses second >> uh discussion >> yeah and I the reason why is just because the wrership is so low and I just think that we can get by with one bus >> yeah I mean I think that we have felt for a long time we could we could transport most of the high school students who needed to be transported with two buses we've been fighting this battle for I don't know three or four years. Correct. So I still maintain we could probably >>

084well I think the reason it was it was fought last time was because the hope was by having that additional high school bus it would go to co. So I think that was the reason why people fought for it before. Now I think it's more reasonable one to go to conquered one co. So hoping that people won't have a problem with that and want to put that bus back in the budget for whatever reason. And then it still leaves us the seven buses for DCS that we really do hope one day we can do which well Amy might be doing. Yeah. >> Well, yeah. They have the drivers. >> So 10 buses, but we have nine drivers. So >> but as Amy pointed out it hope all the drivers come back, >> right? That's a

085problem that we have every year, right? >> So, we can be trying still to get that seventh bus for here, but >> if someone decides they don't want to drive anymore, Missy, you'll have to go find them. >> Um, okay. All in favor of of cutting one CHS bus from the budget? I >> I >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? One obsession. Okay, you have that number for Okay, you don't have to do it right now, but I'm going to calculate it right now. So, you guys have Kristen, you said um of the six students that have an announcer high school, you said it's down to four. >> Down to four. Yeah. two and one for >> and I predict it'll probably be two. >> Definitely two more for co if I were to >> so

086that that'll put your proposed budget amount at 20 million 857,912. >> I do have a question though. What about homeschooled kids? >> So, we've had a few reach out. Um >> I'm working with one that I know is looking at coping. >> Yeah, we've had a few families reach out. Um and we're including them in numbers. >> Okay. What if they haven't reached out? >> Then we wouldn't know. We would anticipate that they stay home school unless they say otherwise, >> but they don't have to to decide. I mean, they don't have to really contact the school or us until the summer, right? >> They don't have to. It's ideal so that we can budget. They're not thinking, oh, the school has to do a budget. They're not. They're thinking, oh, at the end of

087the school, you know, the end of the year, I'm gonna Where is my kid going to go to high school? Yeah. >> Um, okay. >> Because I don't know. I'll ask I'll talk to you later about the one I know about if if you have that person. >> I don't. >> Which which kind of kids are out are? We know those students. >> School straight. >> And I have no idea if this person's going to go there, but that is definitely a school they're looking at. So I think this kind of speaks to and I know you guys have talked about this before is a trust fun >> for high school tuition because we don't know that when some of these families are going to come back in from home school or families move to

088the town and it doesn't have to be a huge amount but just enough to cover like two to three kids in tuition. >> You know the thing is is that I mean just from tax break from what I've heard is like we >> we always end up with all this surplus. So, >> at the end of the day, like like high school's already costing >> Yeah. >> so much. And to me, that's like I hear what you're saying, but to me, that's one of those things that the taxpayers see >> and are like, >> we're already paying all this for high school. Now, they want more money for high school. >> I get it. I think it's just because we we're in this cycle of a default budget. And so that's why we end up

089with surplus sometimes is because we're not budgeting for what we're actually doing because we keep going back to seven, eight years ago budgeting. And so it doesn't match our current practices. And so it's really difficult to get that ground back up to budget accurately and have it reflect current. And so then you do end up with surpluses or running in the red almost and having to make budget freezes and things like that. We've been there, too. So, um, yeah, it's tough. I understand it. It just like logically makes sense to me that you, you know, >> it does. I just think in terms of like trying to build that trust with the community like asking for any more money for high school just as like a even though it's a trust fund. >> I know

090I'm still going to recommend good budgeting practice, but >> I get it. Right. I just think in terms of us trying to get our money approved >> right separate than the budget they could vote on that and approve the budget. >> No, I I understand that but they're still looking at that as things that we're proposing. >> I think it's because when we the year when all of a sudden the taxes went up, everybody realized that all this money was being snuck in on them through warrant articles. So then the town got pretty a lot of people got wise to warrant articles and voted them all down. I don't think so. >> I think my taxes went way up because >> Oh, I I think it was and I think that's why they got >>

091My understanding was that we had been art not we the school board but the town had been artificially buying down the tax rate with surplus, >> right? >> And then surplus ran out. >> But it hits you hard hit really hard because the war articles and they don't put things in the budget that should be in the budget. They put them in articles. >> Well, the town the town has a different philosophy about buding. >> They do. Yes. >> But as far as >> What were you going to say, Missy? >> What was that? I didn't catch the number budget. >> Oh, with the bus removed, it's 20,857, 912. >> So, $81,000 still above default. Mhm. >> So, just to go back to this, um, it's funny because we tried to add about $40,000, I

092think, last year for high school tuition and we went over by 40 about $32,000. So, >> and it's going to happen again. And like it might not seem like 32,000 when we're returning 600,000 this year is not a big deal, >> but I think some of us are a little bit um sensitive to two years ago when the budget was frozen for the entire year. >> Yeah. He can tell you all of us had a special rate cost that we did not expect huge and we everything was frozen the entire year and it wouldn't like our special education trust fund wouldn't have covered the entire expense. So we were thinking that we were going to have to potentially drain the special ed trust fund and multiple other trust funds to cover this cost. And then

093so that's I think why some of us feel like yes $32,000 doesn't seem that crazy, but in a year when we didn't think we had $32,000 extra dollars >> and it was $250,000 we would come up. >> Yeah, it was more than that. >> It was more than that. >> I wasn't on the board at that time. I think it was >> I just did another rough calculation just so you could add numbers to your sheet and I'm hoping I'm right but it would mean that your uh overall change not including so where you see the 469,000 >> the increase would be 376,437 with the percent increase of I believe I got 1.8 eight and change >> for what 3764 >> 37 sorry >> and then percentage be around 1.8 which is a really incredibly

094small percent increase >> considering even for zero but >> considering considering you've got two CDAs in there you're covering >> we have insurance cost right up by 9% >> right and that's not like we can't say >> right no it can't go up 9% that's out of >> our hand so there's a lot things that are in there that even high school tuition, >> we don't set the high school tuition, >> right? High school tuition went up 3.5% or something >> and our total overall budget's only going up 1.8 which means >> other places are not going streamlining other places down by 66,000 67,000 >> your special ed lines went down. >> Yep. So trying the things we're doing to streamline are are working. It's just not always visible when you see, you know, increases.

095>> Transportation decrease. That was a big one. Even without the one we just added for the budget still articles, >> but not till >> No, I we need to talk about a little bit. >> No. Okay. >> I mean, we need to sort of lay the timeline for more articles. Have you do that now? Thank you for reminding me. It was on my list of things to talk about during budget discussions. So we need to my recommendation is to final try to finalize war articles by the first meeting in January which only leaves one more meeting in December and then the meeting in January. Um, I don't know the dates in January, but I think so. The NBC public hearing is January 3rd or 13th and the NBC will need to meet to vote on

096recommendations if they are cost uh, warrant articles. So, if there's money involved, the NBC either recommends or does not recommend them. >> And if it's out of surplus, >> they still they still vote on whether they would recommend or not. >> Okay. Yeah. >> So, um my preference would be so that they can be included in the public hearing if the public wanted to talk about them to the NBC before they're voted on is that we have them for that public hearing, >> which would mean we need to finalize them the first meeting of January 7th. >> Okay. And that doesn't give us much time. >> Does not give us much more meetings before then. If there are novel warrant articles that we've not had before, we generally send them to council for either drafting

097or review of the draft language to make sure that we can actually ask the question that we are proposing to ask, >> right? That the language is legal. >> Yeah, there's a lot of um prohibitions on how we phrase things. >> Um like we can't electioner in our warrant articles. We can't say, you know, to save the town a bunch of money, should we do this? Um, you know, it's a very like has to be precisely word. >> Can I suggest that we just finish the budget first? >> Yes. Yes, absolutely. I'm just I want people start thinking about it because we need to >> Yeah. Uh, we need to finalize those budget. >> Okay. >> What else about the budget, peeps? >> Um, was there where is the the the preschool Um, I just

098had some questions about like where like when was the last time that we increased the cost that we charge for. >> So that doesn't go in the budget. That would be revenue. >> Yeah, that's revenue offset. So to be honest, it's probably been a long time since we increased the uh rate that we charge families. Um, we only charge families for nonidentified students. We cannot charge families who have kids with special needs. >> Um, so it's probably been a hot minute since we've looked at increasing that >> affect the budget because >> right it would be a revenue source. >> Yeah. Teachers cost also. >> Yeah. It's worth it's worth looking into though because it's probably so much lower than what but you do have to remember that it's not a full day. It's not

099you know >> and we want to incentivize people >> and we need the rec. Yeah. We need the nonidentified kids since we have to have like the same amount. >> Yeah, we have to have 50. >> You don't want you don't want to make it so high or anything that people won't do it. >> Oh, no. Absolutely. But like everything else, everything's going up and these teachers are costing us more money. So, >> yeah, we I'm just saying we don't have to decide it tonight based on the budget. I don't think like I think revenue calculations are just I mean we use revenue calculations for setting the tax rate. So like when it goes to NBC we do a proposed or an estimated tax rate based on the revenue that we know about. Um, so

100it could impact the proposed tax rate, but I don't think we need to decide tonight if we want to actually get more info about, >> but I can gather info for the next time we meet around that and when it was increased last time what the current rate is. >> Yeah. >> And I just want to reiterate because this comes up several times about getting rid of preschool. Preschool saves us money, >> you know. >> Well, you're going to have to pay for it one way or another because you have to pay for all the special ed costs >> and Exactly. And the whole reason we went into having preschool at the school was because it saved us money. >> So that's >> or or at least it at least it's you know it breaks

101even whereas we would be paying a lot of money to send our kids to a different preschool or sending our special specialists out to other places to give them services. >> I think that that hasn't really that's kind of what we have been that we're assuming is that we're breaking even. I don't know that we have actually >> done that study to find out whether we actually are. Obviously, it's good. You know, there's a lot of benefits to having it in house, right? Because of the kids being in the school and they're transitioning kindergarten. I think there's a lot of benefits, but I think that that is something that we should look at is is is that study of are we actually saving money or do we want to consider because that's all >> I

102mean, I think it would be super hard to calculate. >> That's the problem. Yeah. I I had a presentation asked for a presentation a while ago and it's just really hard to calculate that. You don't know which kids are you're going to have. You don't know where they would be, where you'd have to send, right? I mean, it's >> Yeah, we'd have to send staff out. So, if we didn't have our own preschool, we'd have to send staff out to the local preschools and daycarees, right, >> to provide those special education services. And you'd be sending out three to four individuals depending on the need and service. So, um, and then potentially we would need more staff here if our current staff here are having to go out and set. >> Well, we wouldn't have

103them here. We wouldn't have the staff here. >> Oh, got it. They would out. Got it. >> I I do know that when we first did it, like when we first started, we were making money. I would I'm sure we're not making money now just because, you know, we haven't increased the cost or anything like that. >> Well, a lot of the rules have changed with it. But but I I still think that we are saving money rather than having to not have it in the school. I think we'd be paying a lot more. >> But it's worth a re look at. And I guess >> I know there was uh like you said, I think there was somewhat of a study done in the last several years. >> We've locate that. >> We have

104had presentations every year that I've been on the board about preschool. I think what's hard is that like you could take the current class of preschools, preschoolers potentially and see what types of services they need and try to estimate the cost if we would have to do contracting them out would be you would know how person would have to drive, how long it would take them to get there. >> But that's how but that's how we budget for special ed anyway is a snapshot in time. And that's all you can do is a snapshot in time. And so you would just go by what you currently have and just anticipate that that would not be the same. Like so yeah, we can we can do all that. And I think that's everything's always worth a

105reook. Yeah. Um >> I'm just saying it's fine because the kids that aren't going to preschool here like they could be going to preschool in Raymond, right? They could be going to preschool in Manchester, right? Who knows? >> But as she was saying, we probably wouldn't be using our DCS staff because >> Well, that or we'd be sending them out everywhere, right? So then >> Right. But then we wouldn't have them here, right? So more most like cuz I don't know how many >> are even preschool. >> I don't know if they're assigned just to preschool. Yes, they are. >> Okay. So, but like you said, but if it wasn't enough, >> right? >> Like if you have a kid in Raymond and a kid in Hooken and a kid in Deerfield, you know, three

106different kids at three different schools. >> Well, you have one OT. >> Yeah. And that's your biggest cost. It's we're gonna >> So then you're gonna have to contract out because that one OT kid needed services four days a week. You only have one OT to do it. So then be like, "Okay, >> well the real service providers we use are also used in the building. They're not solely for preschool. >> So it's >> to have them leave. Like there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to go. We have we have contract out for additional services to cover that. That's what would cost us the most would be a related and that's why we brought it in house. It was that I remember the discussion that was the main reason the teacher >> it's

107worth trying to get >> but the related service >> it's worth trying to get a shot you know to get an idea we know it's not going to be 100% but might as well have that information. I know other people have asked for it in the community so >> I might as well try to do it and and see. Um, >> I just don't I don't know that we could do like I know people have said like we need like a 10year look back and that's just impossible. >> It's okay if we move off of >> Yeah. Okay. >> I thought the modular remember we had that discussion. >> Yeah, I had that in my notes as well. >> Okay. So, I looked into that. So, the Oh gosh. Let me get to the line.

108>> Are you on it? >> Yeah, it's on page 19 and it's line number 133. >> Okay. So, the modular uh the rent the third the 32,000 was the rent for both mod. That's what I I had Amber double check and it was the rent for both the year prior it was significantly more because you bought them. >> You bought them this past, right? >> Yeah. Yeah, I know that. I just I really thought the rent was like 30,000 each. >> No, >> it was 32 for both. I had her double triple check. >> That was my recollection as well. But >> yeah, >> and that's what we've budgeted since 2023. >> So that makes sense. >> Oh, another thing I had Amber do is you guys asked to see the uh voted default from

109the previous year. So I had her change the line that's showing up in this budget, the first like counting line FY2425 voted default because last in the previous budget packet you had actuals >> which is still helpful. So I have this out to look at the actuals still because I think >> you guys have both. >> So I had her add in the default. We just can't add in another line in there. We can't fit it in in our grid. So, if you want to see the actuals, that's in the last budget. And then the default for last year is in here. >> Yeah, I'm definitely going to find all of this. That was like May that we were dealing with the >> modune. Yeah, if you look at your actual expenditures for the mods

110for last year, >> yeah, >> you'll see it was significantly higher, but it was the purchase prices of the mods, >> right? >> Line 133. >> Yeah. The last year was 127. >> Yeah. 127. >> Yeah. because that just doesn't that doesn't add up because we >> it just doesn't add up with like we paid like I think it was like 91 or something for the two >> Yeah. 30 figured out it was like two like one year of rent was like um 64,000 so it was like 91 minus 64 which is pretty close to that number. I think the math last time the board talked about this like two or three years ago was that we would make up the money in three years by purchasing. >> Yeah. I don't wasn't here for that.

111My point is what we were discussing and decided and the reason that we voted on it is because unless in in the next year we would you know if you carried that over it only cost us it was like >> a year and a half. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it' be like a year and a half that we received it. So that's why we >> That's what I remember too. But we must have had the wrong number. I think the ratio was wrong. >> Yeah. I had her double check and she said it was accurate. It was 32 is the the rent for both. >> No, I have all that stuff. >> Well, it's probably on the drive, right? >> Yeah. Probably >> in the minutes. >> Probably in the minutes, but I don't know.

112I don't know what documents you looked at to make the decision. >> I mean, I'm sure I looked at at some point, but I know forever. >> I know. I've got a copy of the somewhere the least, but it's home. I I just my memory last time we like two or three years ago um when when it was proposed it the math in my memory was about three years until we broke even which makes sense if if we purchased for >> they were 30,000ish >> a year but >> yeah that's not the math that we did in May >> six months ago >> three years ago was six months ago you want to say as it is in the minutes. >> Yeah. >> Of what the >> for of meeting >> what what the cost

113>> whatever it was. Yeah. >> Yeah. Right. That's what I mean. We should be able to find it in the drive >> those numbers that we were comparing. >> Uh you can look for two friends. I mean, I guess how would that work if you if we voted on the budget and then we found additional savings that >> So, we still have time like if there's things that we find like that we know are an error, we can take that to NBC and we can let them know. >> Yeah. So, like last year for instance, we didn't have the Conquer High School tuition finalized before we did our budget. So then when the embassy had our budget, I made a motion to increase the budget line by whatever it was for the conquered increase. So

114we can still add things. It's it it's more complicated, but >> yeah, >> but and we and it's reserved for like stuff that really was out of our kind of control. I'm sure they would vote in favor of a reduction if it Yeah, >> sure. Based on my experience, >> I think um I know that we talked about it last time. Um I don't know. I don't know if it was voted on or if we just left it as it was or but I guess with all the um I know that the uh all the IIA stuff and those cuts are there was a lot of opposition to that. So, I just want wanted to bring up the um fourth kindergarten position again and see if that's something that you guys would consider. >> We

115did vote on that. I'm pretty sure you guys voted on that. >> I think but we didn't I think what came up after CIA, >> right? >> But we did vote on the kindergarten one. >> Yeah. >> I mean, you're going to do it again. >> Right. That's all I'm asking is that just, >> you know, if you guys are willing to consider that in terms of trying to reduce our budget and I just think in terms of the goal of trying to get it um our budget, our proposed budget passed and just from what we I just think the four I just didn't really understand where the um those paras are still going to be in the room. So you're talking about an additional like there was the question of too many bodies in

116the room talking about an extra four kindergarteners in in a row. don't think that that is significant enough to warrant another teacher salary in classroom. >> Yeah, >> that's a good thing to finish. I think that it's there's a collective discussion. I think that was just one point that was mentioned. Um, but I think that what we have to remember is a lot of students coming to kindergarten are not as prepared as kindergarteners have been in the past. I think we've seen that trend over the over several years and especially since co um we do have several students with that have powers that become special education students that do have powers that are adults in the room. That is one factor to consider. But I think the education of students overall, if you talk to

117any of the kindergarten teachers, they would say if you could keep the class sizes smaller, it benefits everybody. And I feel like that's I I have to keep advocating for that. And it's not just the number of adults in the room. There's a lot of factors that go into why we're considering for kindergartens. >> Yeah. And I know I said it last time. I mean, I think we all agree and I did say it and people did, you know, disagree that smaller class sizes are generally going to be super beneficial. Obviously, Helen brought up that they can be not for kindergarten. >> We're never going to get into that position where >> I think where it's going to hurt anybody, but >> yeah, there's 12 kids in a class, they're going to get more attention

118than if there's 16 kids in a class. I get that, but I don't think that we're doing them any disservice by having four more kids in with you're going to have a teacher, a parah, and then potentially a special ed. So, three adults in the room with 16 kids. If that's not manageable, then >> it might not be 16. Last year, we were 18 kids. us and it was it it was >> that's the game >> very played in the spring and voted it back in and then the numbers came in really low. >> Well, it's a discussion we've had for a long time. I mean, it's it's that happened. There was a lot of history behind how that even happened why we wanted to do kindergartens. Um the previous year we had fourth grade

119candidate that dropped out and conversation had happened and but I I feel like you cannot predict what kindergarten is going to be. You just can't. And we didn't predict 18 kids last year. And the and first grade teachers are feeling the effects of that of not having that most kids as prepared for for first grade as they could have been. Not all students, but um and the attention you can give to kids in small class size, especially in kindergarten, is so valuable. And it is you will reap the benefits for years to come. >> Right. And I I mean I think the the bigger the class size in kindergarten, the more we're going to end up spending down the road on specialists, special ed. I mean, I I'm speculating here, but I think giving students

120the attention in their first year full-time school is very valuable. So I think in order for it to be reconsidered, I think procedurally someone on um someone who voted I don't remember how this works. >> I think it has to be someone who did vote for it opens it up again. >> Correct. So >> which I did. >> Yeah. >> No. Well, what I mean is it would have to be one of three of us because we voted against your motion. I think that's I think so it' have to be one of us would have to >> at least that's how you already brought it forward. >> Yeah. >> So we could open it up for further discussion. >> Yeah. But you don't have to. I mean we could. We're discussing it now. >> Well,

121I didn't know you could open up for Yeah. I just always get confused still on >> when to discuss what. I still get I mean because I mean for me I mean I was I was torn because I was one that two thought having a parah in there a full-time para with it you could you could do it but then I start hearing things about again the readiness of kids coming in. I mean, if you have kids coming in to kindergarten that aren't toilet trained, that's an issue. I mean, yes, they all have accidents. I had first graders that did, but if you have kids that are consistently coming in, so whose responsibility is that? You know, things like that. And I guess too, I get concerned with the numbers. Unfortunately, it's something we don't

122have a good handle on the number right now. And even in the spring, obviously we don't have the the number. We assume more are going to come in. For me personally, I would like almost to have the four another year and let's see where the numbers fall. Like if we have another year where it's only 12 kids per room, then maybe that might be the trend that's happening. But I get concerned if we cut it and then all of a sudden everybody that moves into Deerfield and yes, there are a lot of houses for sale in Deerfield, but there's also a lot of houses that are selling. I mean, there's a lot of them that I've seen go on the market, off the market. We don't know what's coming in. Well, I think sometimes when

123um so when boards are considering doing this, sometimes leaving that decision up to the principal and just saying you and I'm not recommending you do this because I'm certainly not in favor, but you could just say you want to cut a teaching position, right? one FTE instead of isolating it into kindergarten and then ending up in a situation where you've got now 20 kids per class and that blows the standard of what we're allowed to do. So, >> so I speak to this too because um I totally get where you are and this has caused me so much heartburn and I'm the one that really kind of forced the issue to have three classes that one year and I I feel like I that it wasn't very successful. I think 18 kids in the class

124I've heard a lot. It's also it's more than just kids not coming in. Like I'm I've been really trying to listen to this. I'm really trying to to gain it all because believe me, I like to cut the budget, too. But, um, we're in a we're kind of in a different world, too. The kids coming in. It's not just that they're not potty trained. It's you got little guys that have anxiety. You've got, um, you know, autism is on the increase. You've got so many more issues that these kids coming in. And I do believe that if you have a smaller class, I don't I do think that one year it shouldn't have been that small. And I think that's what kind of started it. You know, we had like nine and 10. And I

125mean, I think that was way too small. It should have gone to three kindergartens, but that hasn't been the case in the last couple years. And I don't think that we should go to 18 in a classroom. I think it's really detrimental to to the kids and to their learning. and and and really and even if you had those extra bodies in the room, I'm not sure that that would work cuz I'm I'm just thinking even like of like my own grandkids, you know, that they're I have one who's on the spectrum and another one who just might be diagnosed on the spectrum as well that I've just heard. And in kindergarten, they they're really having a hard time with transitions and they need to be somewhere where there's space. And the more that you

126cram into the room, the louder it is, the more activity that's going on, the harder it is for kids with any kind of sensory issues, it's really difficult for them. So, I think that it is beneficial to have smaller kindergarten sizes, you know, within reason. And I think that if we do end up, like you said, numbers are going down and we start to get back to that again where it's really low, but it almost is like that one class was an anomaly. But if we do get down below, then we have to consider it definitely getting rid of a teacher. I don't think we should have really really tiny kindergarten classes, but um that hasn't really been the case. I think we end up with what 16 this year in each class. >> I

127mean, no, it would have been >> it would if we had >> it would have been 16, >> which might have been manageable, but but you're still taking that risk of more kids coming in. 16 is a lot. >> As far as getting rid of another teacher, um I keep going back to looking at the CL like everybody keeps saying class sizes, raise class sizes. Well, we've got like eight. Most classes have 18. Three classes of 18. And if you reduce those to two, you're at 25 kids, which is above even the state, you know, what the state is recommending. And we have classrooms that aren't suited for 25 kids. So, I just don't see how that can happen. I mean, I >> I totally hear you. And I agree that that to me that's

128>> you know I'm not opposed to doing that and leaving it up to the principal's discretion but I think that you know what how many kids are in Chip's class? >> week 42. Yeah. >> Yeah. So my son's class is that really tiny class, right? >> So and people are like oh you know that grade should get cut to two. So then that's 21 >> which is above what our >> you know what we 16 to 20 right? So >> um >> and again that's a shortterm fix >> but he'd be back up the next year. >> Well yeah and you know people have said oh well they're they're in second grade right now like it could follow up >> right but there's no guarantee that you're not going to have kids come in and

129add to that class too. And that's it. It's such a it's I don't know if it's a bad word to say, but it's kind of a crapshoot, you know, trying to figure out how many kids are going to be there and budgeting for the number, but we if we lose that teacher, we lose a teacher. It's out the budget. You know, the budget gets approved and we've taken the teacher out, it's gone. So then if numbers come up, it's kind of a hard thing. You know, what do you do? I don't And I don't think I don't think that we have excess teachers right now. I really don't. I don't think that the the numbers have been very flat, though. I don't think that there's any >> No, they've been pretty steady. We haven't had

130big increase. Is that what you mean? >> Yeah. >> We haven't had big increases or decreases. >> No, they've been pretty steady. Our our numbers have been pretty steady. And looking back at the number of staff, we have not increased a bunch of staff. We've had the same amount of FTEEs that we've had for quite a long time. Um maybe they've been moved around in different places, but we have the same amount of FTEEs. So, I don't think that we're really, it's not like we keep adding and adding and you know, going back to music and art, right? I don't know the exact year because I haven't found the exact year, but between 1999 and 2005, that's when we added those. So, we've had them for over 20 years. We've had two arts, two musics,

131two beats, and we have a great program. I I just don't want to get rid of that. And I'm not really sure why. Why is all of a sudden some people are asking for that? Is it just because of the budget? Maybe. And if it is, well, but we have high school and I don't care what anybody says. We're spending a lot more money for high school than we did before we added choice. >> Well, throw out a wild card here just just for a comparison because I was curious based on some of the comments last time. I had Amber calculate if you sent all your kids to PA, you'd reduce your budget by almost $600,000. >> Yeah. Yeah. I figured that out in my head a while ago, >> right? >> But I wanted

132to see I did too, but I wanted to see it in actuality. So like if it really was about money, >> right, >> over half a million would be >> a lot of the people that are screaming for these changes are the ones that were screaming for high school choice. They're the ones who wanted it. We did it. We said it was going to cost more. We were very very vocal that it was going to cost more money. >> Yeah. But but just on the grand scheme of things to save $600,000 to send everybody to a school where they don't want them, you know, >> right? There's give and take to saying like we just saved almost 100 grand on on that bus, right? You know what I mean? So to save 600 on a

133school that nobody wants to go to, not nobody, but you know, I mean, relatively speaking, >> the numbers are shown. >> I agree. I'm not saying I'm against high school choice. I'm not. But but what I'm saying is you get high school choice and then all a sudden people are coming and wanting to cut the DCS budget like mad. And it's like, is that fair? I don't think that's fair. We've been trying really hard to look for waste, you know, and that we may have a difference of opinion about getting rid of one of the teachers, but other than that, there's really not so much waste here, I'm not seeing it. >> And when I was I asked Jess about this, but I was trying to organize all my stuff and um I found a

134paper that I had forgotten about that we got at executive board that um Jack other superintendent had asked for this information but gave it to everyone and it was he asked for the number of employees per district and the total number of SA you the employees >> yeah so for each town in ours and it's interesting because Deerfield has just under 500 high 400s for enrollment >> and DCS >> I mean sorry what did I say DCS us >> I not to be confused Deerfield, I mean high school and >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just so our five pounds. So Deerfield has a um enrollment of just under 500 and this was done in October I believe. Um we have a hundred full-time employees. So >> including special ed >> special ed everybody. So our employees

135>> part-time kitchen custodians. >> I'm not sure that that's >> it is we don't have >> it's employees >> employ. Okay. So it's not a certified answer. >> No, you don't have 100 teachers. >> Not 100 employees >> and not all. >> Yeah. Right. >> Okay. Just making sure. >> Okay. >> And we have a population of just under 500. Epsom. >> I have written down because I went on their website or something. They're under 400 for their enrollment and they have 99. So that made me like, wow, we have more kids >> and ratio. Yeah, higher ratio. >> Higher ratio. And And then like um you know, Tri Chester has 46. They have 200 students thereabouts. >> Oh, yeah. It's not just teachers or parents. >> It's all in Exactly. >> kind of hard

136because it is five kitchen staff compared to 10. >> Yeah. And I and I get it, but I still think that we're not as overstaffed as we as it's believed us to be. I just found it interesting, you know, looking at those and you know, Epsom, you know, quite a few lower and has 99. So, >> so here's a question. So all of the special needs staff that we have here for the school, right? I'm assuming it takes care of all of our students, right? Does the SNU for us also employ the same type of employees? >> Some of them, not all. Not all types. No. So >> some duplicates from the SA. >> It depends on whether or not like DCS is able to fill a position. So, there's DCS only has a couple

137of SAU employees that work for them. Um, school psychologist who we actually currently contract out with because we weren't able to fill that. Um, and speech and language pathologist. So, and then you have the LEA rep for the high school and that's really about it. Um, speech pathologist is only two days, >> right? So, it's a part-time speech pathologist. Uh, you guys really don't have like SAU staff that work in Deerfield. mostly directly hired staff in Defield. >> And just to clarify, I feel like your question is, are we paying for two staff to do the same thing? And the answer is we're not paying for the SAU staff who do special education. We pay per rat for our students who get services. So we're not >> correct. So we're not paying their salary in

138the fund one budget and also paying them for services. Oh, >> correct. >> So we just Yeah, >> basically. Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. Because I wasn't sure if just because they say you had them on staff for like amongst the schools. >> It's very confusing, but it's in a different fund. So the fund one is what we all split even I not evenly >> pro rata between the districts. Then fund five, you're talking SA. SA budget >> is where all the uh special ed staff are and we pay >> fund n >> um and then we pay >> for one addition is that um we do pay for all of our special ed services in charter schools out of the um budget. >> Yeah. Oh, that's true. charter school because we do have to

139provide special education services to students that go to charter schools too um who reside in Deerfield. You guys have to pay for those special ed services. So, and where that lives in this budget is 1,200 323. That's your contracted services line and that's where your SAU budget portion of your special ed lives. Um and that is and it's only a portion of that contracted services. It's not everything. Um and that's where I think Dr. Hall had provided some uh info sheets for us uh a couple meetings ago and it breaks down what employees like what types of services we actually pay for for Deerfield in that contracted services. So it provided you uh the type of employee, what percentage you might pay of that employee, all that kind of good stuff is in there. So

140but you're you're not double paying for it. It's reflected in line 44. So like except for the fund one budget, we're not we pay for the SA what we use from the SAU. So I remember the first time I went to the SAU budget session, I was like, why are we talking about preschool? We have our own preschool. Why are we talking about the SA preschool? I don't want to pay for that. You don't. And we don't is the answer. You don't. So, we have we have dozens and dozens of spreadsheets that we keep that keep track of what services are utilized and who pays for what because you only pay for what you use. You're not paying for services that aren't used for kids in Deerfield >> or that attend schools or other district

141placements that are Deerfield residents. >> Okay. So, >> and your high school services for special education are included in that 323 line as well. Um, another thing back with kindergarten, um, in light of the fact that there are some children that come in that aren't ready, right? And there are some that probably can't or don't need to be concentrated full time all day. What was what's the position on half day kindergarten for everyone? That's a good question. I I would be very against happy kindergarten for every kindergarten student. >> I think it goes back to I think Kendra you mentioned it earlier is you're either going to pay for it in kindergarten or you're going to pay for it in remedial services when they get in full-time in first grade because the full day exposure

142prepares them for that academic load that hits in first grade and beyond becoming active readers. If they don't have that full day exposure, you're already behind the eightball in trying to get them prepared to be active readers. So now your special ed services are going to increase. Your intervention, your title two, all that's going to increase because you're having to make up because they're missing time that they would have gotten in full day kindergarten because they're already behind more significantly than they have been. Um, and probably for many reasons that we don't even know of. But you're going to reduce the time they're here getting those services. You're going to spend more time in more services when they come in first grade full-time. And that's a philosophy thing, but research that's what research says and

143that's what we've seen to be true in public education. >> And the curriculum not covered in kindergarten is not made for part for part-time kindergarten or half day kindergarten. It is to prepare kids for first grade. the the full-time the curriculum we have is for is intended for full time. You get through half of what you what the teachers get through if you and I know that there's some like debate about whether kindergarten should be for play or whatever but there are standards that we don't set. They are set by the state and our curriculum is based on those standards. So we feel like we need to set up our curriculum to prepare students for first grade so that they can succeed in first grade. So if we cut that and we cut all of

144that then I just I don't know how we would prepare students. >> The state only requires grade though right? >> That is true. >> Correct. >> But but the standards for first grade I'm talking about like how do we meet those standards if our kids aren't adequately prepared? more intervention >> across the state. People are moving to full day kindergarten and I've not heard people going backwards. >> Yeah. No, I mean honestly I I'm rather see have four or more kids in the class be there all day to do half days >> becomes a burden on your town too for your child care and things like that. Well, if we're only doing half day, then we're talking about more bus routes. So, now we have buses coming. I don't know. I don't know what day

145time would go. It would be 11:30. Now we're doing another bus route at least a few. >> Yeah. And you'd have to bring >> Oh gosh. We did two sessions of half day. Then we were just like have buses. I don't know. Never stopping. I guess I don't know how that would work. I do think when we had part I do remember we had when we first had kindergarten. It was half day and I think kids came in the morning on the bus and someone picked them up but that was years ago. So when so I think when they left at 11:30 they were picked up and I think the ones coming in were dropped off but then the ones that were the end of the day went home on the bus. But I'm not

146sure that was years and years ago. So the dynamics of the community >> changed too as far as >> working and stuff like that. So I guess again for me as I said earlier I I would like to see another year of where our numbers fall and if we come in low again then you know if that seems to be the trend that we get another year I then consider it next year but I think at this point I'm not ready to cut one of the positions. And again, I'll and I'll get grief for it, but that's okay. I'm used to it. The whole thing when we went looking at high school, people were saying, "Well, you provide this for your elementary school. Why won't you provide it for your high school?" And we are

147now. We've we we're providing choice for them now. So why do we need to step backwards with our DCS kids? Yeah. Does that make sense what I was saying? You know, they were saying, "Oh, you do this, you do this. You need to do the same for your high school." Mhm. So now I don't think it's fair for >> the cost per pupil is still much higher for UCS. >> And it should be. I mean, it is across the state. The ratios are much lower for school. I'm just saying >> a lot more services in elementary school than high school. >> I also >> I just fundamentally believe that the first three years of school really lay the foundation. And if we are making cuts, I do not think they should be to those grades.

148Otherwise, it doesn't matter where our kids go to school if none of them learn how to read. It doesn't matter which high school they choose if they're all behind in reading quite frankly. >> Yeah. >> Well, just a reminder, Co. Brown has a standard now that kids won't graduate with a diploma unless they read at the 12th grade level. They will not get a diploma. When I I say when I spent time in Finland observing their their schools, I went to a lot of different schools and they really really focused on helping students when they were younger coming in and and you know they have like the highest ranks. They had kids coming in early that needed special help and they had a whole bunch of teachers. They had so many teachers helping these kids

149to really get to the point where they wanted and their their whole point was if we can get them caught up by like say third fourth grade then you know then they're good. We're not going to have spend as much time on put a lot of emphasis on the early grades on helping them. >> You end up spending less in the long run the more you can provide K to K to four. Well, it's like even when it was brought up about getting rid of reading specialist and math specialist and stuff like I was, you know, thinking about that and it's like they work with the kids that are kind of it's like they're just kind of like I don't quite get it. So, if they get that extra support, >> it's going to keep

150them hopefully keep them up. If they don't get that extra support then and they don't get that then we're probably going to be identifying which then again starts costing us more. >> I think one of the things with um trying to maybe minim are less teachers or or um larger classes comes back to taxpayers that are against an expansion. So they're trying to get people in the building or make it work in the building with what we have. That's that's what I'm thinking from the taxpayers point of view is it's not like why you know we gave them high school choice. Why do you want to take everything away from here? I don't think that in my opinion I don't think that's it. I think it's more that the um the taxpayers don't want to

151see people keep coming up with these ideas for these expansions that are like millions of dollars and >> and I agree with that. But the one thing I want to say that expansion, none of us were on the board >> when that went through. I mean, and I didn't vote for it. So I mean, but >> they don't remember that piece, >> right? >> But it's like, yeah, none of us were. >> But we have done some I mean, we bought the modulars. That's that gives us some time >> to kind of, you know, see how everything goes, if the population changes, whatever. At least at least >> I think makes it a little bit >> easier to get by with having the nodulars knowing that we have them. >> Yeah. But I shake. >>

152I still think there are realities at the school that we're not going to address by moving all the kids inside. Our cafeteria is undersized. Our nurses station undersized. We don't have teacher space. So I think we can bring all the kids in. It doesn't solve our problems. >> And I mean I understand I I have not pushed for an expansion because I can read the room, but like it doesn't solve our problems. I'm just thinking let people come in they don't see all the >> I think that's a huge >> and it's it's spoken >> on record and people could be watching obviously right now >> it needs to be said that you know I think this is the reason that um >> people are all like they're all up in arms a lot they

153don't get the whole picture >> I mean I think that's a big problem with education in general people don't know what it looks like at this point anymore. Like, you know, what we what we experienced in elementary school is not at all similar to the experience now. Like, I'll throw my husband under the bus for a second. When we were voting on the parent contract, he was like, I don't even know what that is. >> And I was like, he's like, I never saw this in my school. And I was like, right. So, when we went to school, special ed kids went to a resource room and we didn't experience that at all. Um, so like people don't really understand what that looks like and that's not their fault. I mean, we need to do

154a better job of explaining to them what education looks like now and why, you know, certain things we feel are needed. I don't know, just education in general, the funding, the everything for it. I somehow, not sure why, but on Facebook now I have Town of Kingston. I don't know why that all of a sudden is popping up on my Facebook page, but of course it caught my eye today because someone said, "Jess got my tax bill right before Christmas. >> The school part went up blah blah blah." And of course, being curious, I had to click and read the comments and Oh, >> it's a mirror. Yeah, it's like Yep. And yeah, >> yeah. So, it it's >> it's unfortunately happening everywhere. And I wish there was a magic wand to say poof. But

155there's just things that, you know, we can't don't have control. Transportation. Yeah, we able to cut a bus. That's great. >> Our state gives us what? 4640 per student. I don't know what that >> less than five or >> maybe it's a little less than that and they give more for the kids for educational freedom accounts. They get more money than the public school does. And then if you look at what the cost is for an elementary school, you know, for elementary students, 22,000 maybe. Does that sound right? >> I met with one of the state senators today about all this stuff. Yeah, >> I met with Howard Curl earlier earlier this afternoon to talk about all these things. >> We are just so >> behind. We're we're the 50th state in how much money

156we give >> the state gives to education >> state gives to education per student. That's where everybody should be getting back. >> Yeah. I and I I understand there obviously are a lot of costs that we don't have control over that funding, but I don't think that we can say that, you know, we don't have control over. I mean there are things that we can choose to like that kindergarten position as a choice. >> Oh, everything's a choice. >> Yeah. I mean, my my statement on this is that we can't make significant cuts without changing the programming that we're offering and the quality of education that we're offering. So, if we want to cut those things, we can. The board gets to decide what quality of education we want to provide. That's true. I don't

157think there's any data showing that the quality of education is better. >> I think I am sure there is. >> I I don't have it in my pocket, but I am sure there's >> I'm sure there's many articles in educational leadership that have that data if that's what you're interested in. Maybe >> in the school though. I'm saying >> no, but I just feel in general. >> Well, we're talking about our school, you know, our performance. But would you want to cut the teacher and then date get collect data about how bad the kids are doing? >> Right. So like we could earmark the current first graders and watch them for the next eight years and see if they're behind >> based on what metrics I don't know. Talking about standardized testing like what are

158we how are we >> judging this? I don't know. >> Right. So that that statement is based on >> I think education research generally that small class sizes are better for student learning and quality of education. And I would say that people who come and advocate for things like Montasauri type programming, you would never see a Montasuri school with 18 kids in a class. >> No way. >> So I just you can't have both things, I think. So, it's it's odd to me that that's like that comes up as we need to do X, Y, and Z, but also we need to have huge classes. I don't I don't think those things fit together. >> Yeah. I just don't think 16 kids is huge. That happened just like, you know, it happened one time with

15918. I mean that was the only time that we had done it I think in the recent history. So >> well the data yeah I don't know what those numbers we could divide that out by four. >> There was one year we had a fairly small kindergarten class coming in but a large first grade class going up like a rising kindergarten into first grade and we moved a teacher to first grade knowing that we needed to it was a large class. So, when we've done things like that in the past, um, and we that following year had three kindergartens. Can't remember. I could go back in the enrollment sheets and see what what the numbers were, but that and that large class ended up having four first grades, four second grades, four third grades, and

160then we dropped it down to three fourth grades. And they reaped the benefits of that. No doubt. So sliding a teacher with a specific grade is not >> super the same all the time. >> But you can move people. >> I mean I wouldn't probably do the same teacher every single year. That would be very challenging. But >> no, it usually just depends on the teacher sometimes. >> Right. >> I did first. We didn't drop a teacher. Right. We accommodated the the large class size and then we were able to >> add it back to the you know back to >> I taught >> first, second, third. >> Yeah. Very common. >> And then I looped with a class one year because it was a group that there was a huge bubble one year and

161they were the ones that had four all the time and there were only three fourth grade classes and they're like we need we're going to need somebody. And I I'll go with this class. And there might >> some teachers like doing that and some teachers. >> Yeah. >> Get to know your staff. >> Yeah. >> Um Okay. Does anyone want to reopen kindergarten or is there a different motion you would like to make, Canon? Because you certainly could make other motions if you wanted to. I'd like to make a motion to remove one FT >> from the teacher salaries. >> Teacher salaries. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> I'll second it for discussion purposes. Sure. >> Discussion. >> Yeah. Because I still regret one time I didn't open something up for discussion once and

162after I went home that night said I should have at least let us discuss it. I was angry with myself. So I will open it up so we can discuss it more if there's any discussion to have. >> Yeah. Um what is the um is the health position is at 75. >> Yes. and health is required. Miss So, >> but we're not fulfilling it. But it's okay. >> We're not currently in compiance. >> Yeah. Not in compiance right now. >> It's, you know, this happens in schools where just can't fill the position because it's not full. >> But we don't need your full time teacher. That would not be smart. We can't justify that. >> So, >> but would a would a fizz teacher be able to be half fizzed, half health? >> If we

163had somebody who was qualified to do that, but they are not their physical their phys educ physical education is their certification. It is not health, >> right? But we've already made adjustments for to get the >> emergency authorization. You're right. You're right. I wonder if also some of the health curriculum could be covered in the science. You know, if you did some of it, you picked some of the science. >> That's how we're that's basically what we're doing. Some of the science, some of some of community circle advisory type, >> but it's not like super kosher with the states. >> Yeah, it's not Yeah, they're not following the curriculum. >> Well, it'd be better than just not doing health at all. >> Correct. No, for sure. For sure. I mean, we're doing what we have

164to do this year. I think that so when you asked if someone you know under emergency but they have to then be working towards certification get certification >> right >> so but >> we've got a new gym teacher >> and they want have to want to >> I was going to say do they want to >> yeah I can't I can't say I mean I could but >> we had somebody interested they were interested in moving into that position to be able to move that position, we need an emergency authorization because they wanted to. >> So if you told the fizz teacher that they we needed to fill that health position, we needed them just be halftime health teacher, they didn't want to you can't >> can't make them. >> Yeah, we I mean we'd

165have to consider what we're going to do. We'd either have to discuss rolling all those competencies and state requirements into other courses and meeting it that way or we can meet it by turning it into a half hell's. Um so that would be a discussion we'd have to figure out. >> That's just like telling a second grade teacher that sorry that you're teaching fourth grade next year. You may not want to but if that's where you need certification you have to go to school and take classes and get certified. It's different than elementary teachers are certified from K to >> six. Yeah. So they they so that they're just jumping out the grade. They don't have to go back to school get no certification or anything like that. They spend their free time have to

166go back to school. >> We'd have to work with the union because it's a restructuring of a position. It's not it it'd be it basically be like doing a riff >> to change a position. Um and that's not what we contracted them to do. So, we would have to work with the union to change the teaching duties of that position. So, as I say, it would have to be work that Kristen, myself, and Brian do to change that position or it could be looking at distributing those um competencies and requirements throughout the teaching load. Like, >> these contracts are one oneoff one-year contracts, right? >> Yeah, >> essentially. But it depends on if the teacher we we hired them for a job, a position. If we change that on a teacher, we they have rights

167and we can't violate those rights without some kind of due process, right? And so working with our union, we have to do that because we're essentially changing that position from under. >> So we're saying the position that you currently have, we're not going to have that anymore. And it's not going to happen. >> Yeah, but it would be like this is for next year. So correct their contracts are going to be over, right? So if this if we vote this in >> and say again it has to get you know >> voted on but um pass you know in our budget but if um now that when they get their new contract it's this is what that position looks like. >> So you would be voting on the FTE you wouldn't be voting on how

168Kristen and I determined to utilize a teacher. So you wouldn't be voting on telling us how to disseminate the health competencies. You'd be saying you're reducing it by an FTE. Then we need to figure out how we're going to meet that. >> Yeah. No, I understand that. I'm just I'm looking for >> Yeah. Anything is possible I'm not filling. >> Yeah. um and doesn't look like we're going to be able to like can it be I mean like I was told that we can't have one fizz teacher because we're we're over for the state requirements but if >> well if we had one and a half right that other half could fulfill the that requirement. Do um do people also they have to be certified? Even if they come and they're working part-time, like if

169it's a health teaching, >> if we're hiring them for a content area that they're in teaching, they need to be certified. >> So, it doesn't matter if it's full-time or part-time or whatever, >> right? >> The only um caveat we get is like when a teacher teaches a content area outside their certification, >> like social studies, >> it's like social studies, it has to be under a certain percentage that they're teaching in order to be able to do that. So could that be the same thing for PE if it's under a certain percentage of >> Yeah. And so I guess what I'm encouraging you to do is not to focus on how we teach the health to focus on the >> because that's going to be a whole lot of stuff that Kristen and Brian

170and I are going to have to figure out. >> Um >> I think it's 50% though. But there's multiple Yeah, there's multiple ways we could do it. Yes. >> I'm not we're not trying to figure out how we're going to do it. I think we're trying to figure out like is there somewhere that is, you know, kind of excess that is not, you know, potentially even going to get filled anyways. So, because I don't there's like I think Kristen is very right in the fact that I don't think nobody's looking for like 0.5 or 75. I mean, maybe I don't know, maybe 0.5 would be better than 75, >> right? somebody that wants more part-time and three quarters is just too much, but not, you know, not enough for full-time person. So, >> parttime positions

171are tricky across the board, >> right? >> I I see where you're coming from. You know, I I get it. And I think the thing is though, if we now say we want to reduce the staff by one, >> well, I'm just going to say I'm going to say one. I'm going to stick to one. Don't mind one. >> Okay. And so if it were to pass, then we're telling these people to figure it out. >> Correct. >> And it might not work to figure it out the way we're thinking that, you know, it might make sense to us like, okay, combine this and that. it might not when they start exploring it be the way to make it work right which I get it that would be that would be a great combination but

172if it doesn't for what for so many reasons work out that way like now we can't meet our requirements for how much time PE students need for PE or we can't this and that then they now have to make a decision okay what grade level are we going to take somebody from if it does do see what I'm saying if it doesn't work out. >> I do. I think that I I just Yeah, I I do see what you're saying. I think it would again when they have to figure it out, like they'll figure it out. You know, I don't think that we're we're not asking to cut two or three. I think there's enough. And that's why I pointed out the health is because that's so close to one. Um, and I I think

173that that health and PE thing is is a natural fit together >> if you had someone like my son-in-law is a certified PE health teacher. He has both certifications, >> right? >> So, he could go into that position already. >> Where's he? >> No, he doesn't live in Rochester. He lives in my son-in-law. My son-in-law. No, he works at Dober Middle School. So, but if our current PE position teachers aren't certified that way and that's where they're thinking, oh, that would be the good way to do it, then you're basically going to have to fire teachers, >> right? And that's just I mean that's part of a to me that's just >> we make hard decisions all the time. >> Hard decisions have to get made. If you we're giving them plenty of notice right

174now like hey are you interested in it? this is what we're thinking is gonna work. And again, this is hypothetical. I'm not trying to tell them how to do it, but I'm saying is that we're giving them enough time if they're interested in it. If they're not, then that's what we're going to be hiring for is a half PE, half health teacher. >> Well, mostly we're going to make any decision that's in the best interest of kids first. Like that will be the priority, not necessarily one program area or another. It's going to be the least impact on kids. So >> yeah, and that's why I was just throwing that out there. I don't know that that's the the right place to take this on that, but um >> so was the motion for one

175FTE or 7? You said one FT. >> Okay. But in that um in what in what I it's why I had suggested it that way is that if you eliminated one FT and the health is at 75 and then you take a half from the PE you're at 1.25. >> Yeah. >> Of savings, right? Because you're you're now putting that >> and this will be eliminating somebody for next year. So if a person doesn't come back or we lose a teacher whatever that's it just means not placing somebody but you know moving people around. I'm just saying a possibility we seem to lose people every year. It would affect next year. >> All right. Um any more discussion? >> Okay. All in favor of removing one FTE from the teacher salaries line. >> I all

176opposed. >> Nay. >> Okay. >> How do we calculate that? So I would say roughly it's going to be around 65,000. And the benefits the benefits >> that it would that would be inclusive because it would be a non-tenured teacher. >> Okay. So they're the lowest pay have to be non-tenured which both are teachers. >> Right. So we're not saying that we >> No, but I'm just rethinking. So, I will work with Amber to come up with an amount and Kristen um like say it'll be a rough amount until we know what we'll have to do. That that's going to be some hard conversations. >> 65,000. Can I change my vote? >> Nope. >> Can I move? >> No. >> Oh, yeah. You could you could move to reconsider the motion. >> It doesn't seem

177like much money to be throwing this up in the air. I was thinking it was going to be more like Why are the benefits not being conserved? >> Because it may be a person who isn't taking benefits. >> Oh, it may be >> correct. If we go with the most, you know, if you look at, you know, non-tenure staff and um people who would be kind of first on the pickings, you're they're lowcost staffs. They're not you're not doing a huge savings. first thing it's not. >> Well, I was just what you were thinking, right? It's not as big as you probably were thinking it was going to be. Um, so if we >> just depends on where it comes from, too. It doesn't I mean that that again that's just that's like the amount

178that possibly could be >> maybe I'm giving you a rough estimate. Yeah, I'm giving you a rough estimate. >> Could be. >> Right. I'm giving you a rough estimate. >> Could be. >> Um >> it just depends on their type of benefit. >> So, how do we approve a body? Do we just take N65 and then if we have firm numbers later, we bring it to the MC? Um, I think you're I think you're just going to have to move. >> I'm gonna move to reopen the vote. Can I do that? >> I don't know. Proceed. >> Oh, but then probably one of you guys would have to agree. >> They would have to second. I think >> you one of you would have to second. So, if you don't agree with me, I said

179move to reopen the vote. I just feel like 65,000 that is like I know that's a lot of money and I know people say it's a lot of money and I know it could be more but it just isn't that much to like throw the whole >> again saying that based on the lowest amount possibly could be. So that's not necessarily what it could be more like it could be more like >> that would be more like somebody that's that has tenure that has that is not taking the benefits. So I, you know, >> likely it'll be a newer teacher though. I mean, >> right. That's what I mean. Like it's not >> newer teacher that all of our newer teachers have are just single, >> right? >> That's I mean like you're you're truly

180looking at right around 65. >> That's why I gave you that answer. It wasn't kind of a shot in the dark. So if if we did have like more firm decisions made during NBC season, we could bring firmer numbers to NBC. >> I I would be recommending that you cut $65,370.16 like the salary of somebody who is lower on the level and whatever their benefits would be. >> I'm not comfortable saying any more about it in public, >> but um it would be $65,370.16. All right, do more man. more math. >> So, I made a motion. Neither of you guys are going to second it. >> All right. The motion fails. >> I should have asked the money first. We will be incredibly close to the default budget. >> Well, default default though. >> So,

181no, only if you if the budget doesn't get approved, it goes back to default. >> Staff position. >> Correct. >> Okay. Y that's what we've had before, right? Yeah. >> So, your new increase overall is going to be $311,6684 311, 066. >> I'm sorry. One more time. 3166.94 I don't think we usually have sets your bottom line is 20 million 792,541.84 84 cents 20,792,54182 essentially >> that' be 542 We don't do >> it'll be five. All righty. Anything else that people want to talk about? >> So, we don't vote. >> We vote on the Yeah, we >> Yeah, we have to vote on the bottom line that's going to the NBC. Yeah. >> That's why we're reading out the numbers. How does that work? Um if >> we have that that's our new bottom line.

182>> Yep. >> Um if there like say somebody didn't agree with the >> Yeah. So is that Yeah. >> So as the rep to the MC is that what you're asking? So, our policy is that we represent what the quorum of the board decided. >> So, if I'm the NBC rep, this is the budget number that I'm going with. 20 million 792 whatever. >> You can't represent your own. >> I don't represent my own opinion. >> No, I understand that. No, sorry, I asked it. Um what what I'm asking is this is our number like based on kind of what was in here and now the new things that we voted on if um like why are we voting on that if that's or is that just accepting everything? >> Yeah. So we have we

183have to vote on a bottom line number to give to the NBC. So tech so technically the NBC could or I think the school board could really just say our budget is going to be $20 million this year and not have all these itemized lines. So we're really voting on a bottom line number that the NBC will get. >> Yeah, >> if that makes sense. >> The NBC can't go through and cut like individual items. They can only cut like >> groupings. Like they could say, "We want $100,000 out of the 1100 lines," but they can't dictate what you cut out of that 1100 line. >> Y um I guess what I'm saying is like there's things that say like just for instance tonight, right? Like you guys voted against that, but that's in there

184now. >> Like if if there's stuff like and I had proposed stuff that didn't get, you know, approved in the vote. So like would I vote against to like saying that it's not representative of what I like >> you could vote against you could we have had we have had members oh you mean when we're voting for you vote against >> yeah I'm not trying to be difficult I'm just trying to think of like oh it's not representative of what >> so there's also another caveat which is that so we are just voting on a number to go to the MVC the NBC can do whatever they want within reason sort of to our budget and then it comes back to us and we say whether or not we recommend the budget. So if they

185cut >> $2 million, we could decide we don't actually recommend the budget that they are giving us and that goes on the ballot, right? >> So your decision on this is just moving it forward to the NBC. It's not reflective of your decision about whether or not you recommend the budget, if that makes sense. >> Okay. >> So, but you can still vote no tonight. We have had members previously who were upset about particular budget lines and but they voted no. But we do have to approve a budget to get it to the NBC. >> So if you guys don't pass a budget number, we go back to more deliberation until you get a budget passed >> between here between you guys. >> I understand. Yeah. >> Yeah. You go back into deliberation to figure

186out what is in such disagreement that you can't move forward. >> Right. And again, it's uh you don't even if you vote to move it on to the NBC today, you don't have to vote to recommend the budget or you you know, if you vote that you don't want it to go to the NBC today, if you end up liking the NBC's budget, you can vote to recommend the budget. It's not binding either way, if that makes sense. And then you get a third chance on voting day, >> correct? Yeah. >> And you will see that it's deliberative if there are changes to the budget then. Lots of lots of chances to cast your vote. >> Okay. Um if there's no other items, I will make a motion to approve a bottom line budget of

18720 million 792,542. >> Rounding up. Yeah. Yeah. We don't second. Okay. Any other discussion? We're not done with it. We're not done with budgets, people, but we'll be done with them on our agenda for a little while. Okay. >> When we have take >> Yes. All in favor? >> I I >> All opposed. >> Okay. Um, I put on the Facebook page for the school board the meetings of the NBC for the school budget. Would encourage everyone to come. It's very um it's a very interesting meeting. So, and and I would definitely recommend people come to the NBC public hearing which is on January. Okay, we'll move on to board reports. I don't see a PTO person here, executive board. Um, pretty much the last meeting was talking about handbooks that were going to be

188completed at the SAU level and a lot of talk on insurance and sending out um trying to get information which some of it we have since gotten back a little bit on insurance but that's pretty much health insurance. >> Yeah, it was a quick meeting. >> Yep. Um the executive or the SAU portion of the health insurance. >> Yes. >> It was like 20%. >> Yeah. >> But then we have more reserves. >> It really just had to do with change in personnel. >> Yeah. So >> 28% for the SAU. How much of our reserves are do are we estimating it'll be >> most of them. It's your it's your >> Yeah. >> Your reserves. >> Yeah. >> Correct. Okie dokie. >> Yeah. Great news. >> Yeah. >> They got nailed. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

189Not great news. >> Okay. Anything else from exact board? No, that was pretty Oh, transportation. They Well, we already voted on transportation. We're a little behind on this report. They were putting out bids for transportation. That's already come. We've already voted. >> Yeah. >> So, how does that play out with um the other districts? Like, do we know like what they chose and stuff or >> for transportation? >> We were talking about like, you know, if we would have savings if we went with a company that took all of them. >> So, the I believe all the other districts are still in deliberation. >> Oh, really? you guys were the only ones to make the decision the first night. Um, so all the other boards will likely be making decisions at their next board meeting

190>> because some only meet once a month. >> Yeah, some only meet once a month. >> Um, and then others wanted time to go through all the data and review the bids. So, um, they'll be making decisions in the coming upcoming meetings. >> Some of them get more than two bids. No, everybody got uh we only got the two bids. >> Yeah, I don't know if there's some closer staying with who they already have. >> Yeah, Chester wasn't included in there because they uh separately go with Marson's um and they weren't well or was not interested in leaving Marson's. So, okay. um curriculum review board. >> Um that we're having a meeting >> December 15th week from next Monday. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. >> Our CRV chair is here, Andrea. She's our chair. >>

191Welcome. >> Not many staff have stayed, so I thought I'd give you a >> We'll come by the report committee if that's cool. Unless you want us to be separate. >> Mr. Poo isn't here tonight. wasn't able to make it. So, we may have to just take a left. That's fine. Uh, facilities committee. >> Um, yeah. So, what we've got in the driver is the uh the draft minutes from the meeting that we had before the last meeting. >> I don't know if you guys had a chance to um so I'll move to Well, I guess I'll just briefly I know we already talked about it. I think one of the biggest things was just the we're going to move forward with the uh the um cafeteria floor project. Um >> and then he's going

192to start Chris is going to start looking for um sanding of the gym floor which potentially was going to one more year out. >> Uh he got a goal for this year. >> Oh, okay. >> For like this last summer. Um but >> yeah, we were just going to push it out. Yeah. >> So it's not getting done. Not this year. Not this year. >> Right. Yeah. I think the the life of it was >> the life of it is roughly eight years. So that put us around 2028. We'll still keep he'll still keep poly like put a layer on it. You know, >> is he doing that? Somebody coming in to do it? there's a cost for a private company is uh I think like eight to nine grand to do that once a

193year. So it's not cost benefit doesn't work out. So um and then yeah just you know continuing to review and update our CIP. Um I don't know if it was mentioned before but the the fuel tank is going to be inspected. Again he's not here so I'm not sure. He may have already done that by now. But anyways, uh and then we're gonna have a meeting um before each facilities committee and Jess and Chris will be before each second meeting. So I will move to approve the minutes for the facilities committee meeting on November 19th. >> Second. Not much discussion. >> There's a motion to all in favor. >> I Okay. And then CIP. >> Yeah. And then the next one. >> Sorry, I just closed it. Oh yeah, >> yours is just beautiful. >>

194Oh yeah, >> I didn't see rainbow in mine. >> I was looking out here. I think that's what do you >> want me to talk to it real quick while you >> so uh facil facilities committee met several times to talk about uh the CIP plan and what projects uh Chris was recommending and what projects we feel like can be covered under impact fees. So he noted on here things with the the three projects up top with the asterisks will uh be seeking impact fees to cover those projects um because they benefit all of the community, not just Deerfield students. And then the projects down below, uh this is the timeline that we agreed upon for the projects that we are aware of and that Chris is recommending. And so we just we kind of

195laid out what we think is a reasonable timeline a to pure funding for these projects because there are a couple of expensive projects in here. Um one being the uh you know ventilators and window replacement well materials keep going up so the longer we push it out the more expensive it gets. Um so we put that out further so that we could potentially look at you know, funding that through board articles or whatever we need to do, but give us a few years to build up that savings so that we can pay for that product so it's not a huge hit to the taxpayers um in one f. So, >> what's um classroom DCT? >> That's the flooring. >> Oh, I see. >> Yeah. And it looks you've got replace full locker room replacement. Oh,

196that's in the cafeteria. That's what he's talking about. >> I mean in the cafeter in the gymnasium. >> Yeah. There's >> inside those little rooms. >> They're just dilapitated and it's just being used for storage right now. And we're reminiscing about a a universal shower that's in the middle. There's no way that's ever getting used again. So >> there's no way. It was I mean we did use the school as an emergency. >> Yeah. >> Tornado shelter. >> We had that people were out of like every school. Okay. Who has power took like a week there were a lot of people who were staying there at night. >> The showers and the girls lock because they're separated but the boys lock all open and again it's just storage. But yeah, the emergency purposes showers use

197those showers. We did >> Oh, and then we had talked about um the area where the moduos are for for drop off. There's that kind of awkward area where um I think that there's asphalt um curving there right now and then a section of grass and then the building and obviously that all turns to mud and during drop off the kids are walking across that and um so Chris had put in here to potentially install pavers in that area and I had suggested um just making that all asphalt. um just from a cost standpoint. Um and it could be maintained easier and it would just cost a lot less money. I don't think it needs to be favored. So um so I think it doesn't look like he updated that um because that should go

198a little bit cheaper. >> Yeah. Oh yeah. >> I think we just didn't have a cost to put in there yet. >> Okay. >> So I think that was why >> Yeah. But that'll be that'll be much slower. So, um yeah, and then just a few the roof the fuel storage shed and then yeah, that big the big the next big ticket one um was the elevator replacement. So, um I think we had talked about that at the last meeting about sending that out to the engineer and we talked about using independent engineer that's not represented by the company that sells and installs. So, I think that's kind of the the big stuff. And then um I think Justin Missy had suggested which I thought was a really good idea about kind of maybe marrying

199the replace UV um and replace windows >> at the same time. Um because those units I don't know if there's one here. There isn't there >> but they're right above like the windows here and then that unit's directly below it. So it seems to make sense. Not in that ventilator. Yeah. Yeah. I guess some >> are. Okay. >> Well, that was right in front of us. And so, we kind of thought that I guess I think we asked Chris and he just >> But we can revisit that. >> Well, it doesn't make sense to it doesn't make sense to do your heating system without replacing windows that need to be replaced because then you're losing all that energy up your windows. >> Yeah. So, window replacement at hundred,000 on a $2 million project. That's we

200were kind of thinking if we're going to fund that big project just do that as well. >> Yeah. >> So, >> and two million was like the top >> like that was like the most expensive like that was the worst case scenario. >> I thought we had almost 460,000. I think >> I think I think we were estimating 750. >> IT'LL DEFINITELY BE LIKE WE'RE ALMOST THERE. >> And I think that that still includes the cooling as well, doesn't >> million does. Yes, that's like the the cream of the crop is 2 million. So that's like worst case scenario. >> I haven't seen any Well, obviously I haven't seen any of those numbers, but that looks really high to me. >> 2 million. >> Yeah, he's gotten like a a potential quote like he had

201gotten like a like forecasting quote from a company and that's how he came up with the 2 million. >> Um it is in that site plan everything as well. So there's a lot of moving parts. >> Correct. Yeah. We've got time to figure that out, but at least put it out because we know it's going to be an expensive project. We need a few years to be able to fund for that. So, >> yeah. >> So, we we were hoping to get you guys to formally adopt the CIP um that the committee came up with so that way we can kind of ratify this and you know, >> so this can still be like amended or if other projects come >> but if we amend it, we bring it back to the board for approval.

202>> Okay. So that way it formalizes the CIP process. >> Yeah. I mean this is still kind of I mean we're like kind of pushing Chris to be like, "Hey, look for projects." You know what I mean? And uh so this is still kind of new in terms of >> So potentially he's going to find other things that take priority, right? So >> it'll be constantly moving. >> This just helps with our >> What is this random number down here? >> Uh I'm not sure. I don't I think it was Chris doing some note takingaking and >> forgot it was Don't worry about that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And we had talked about we moved out the replace carpets and the mods too. >> It was just Yeah. One more year. >> So I will

203move to approve the CIP. All right, I will second. Any discussion? All right, all in favor of approving the capital improvement project plan, sorry. As presented, >> I >> All right. 5. Okay. Anything else for facilities? Um, the last thing and I was hoping Chris was going to be here so I could talk to him to make sure that um, but I there it was brought up at maybe two meetings ago when I wasn't here about um, a second ball pit and um, I don't know maybe if you guys know if that's possible in that space um, but um, I would like to donate that um and build that with my sons and that'll be like a volunteer project for Joseph. So I but I didn't know if I need to ask Chris that'll work.

204>> Yeah, you should ask Chris and then you'll and then we'll need to get approval for that because that donation from the board. >> Yeah. Both my sons. >> That's awesome. >> I don't go. We don't either. >> Yeah. But they said, you know, >> a lot of problems. >> Yeah. That's what Joseph said. He's like, "Sometimes it' be nice if a group could go to the other one and play over there with >> the aggressive group." >> Some people have king rules and queen rules. >> Um, I realized I skipped principles report. I'm sorry about that. That was not intentional. >> Come back to it. >> Yes. Thank you. She want to make sure I was back. >> Yeah, I did. I We can talk. Report. >> All right. This cover is November 6th

205through December 3rd. I like to thank everybody who came out to support this year's fair. The proceeds directly benefit our fifth graders. Um, as you know, they have their big Boston trip, but they also do Starbase trip every They've done this now for two years. This will be their third year going to Starbase. we have seen an improvement in our client scores based on this. So first year they went prior to I mean after s after SAS testing and this year they went prior to it. So um I that that is 10 buses because it's a course of 10 days where all classes are one and a half classes are going at a time. So last year, if you remember correctly, we had a donation made by Metro Cast, I believe. It was definitely >>

206something. Yeah, that's what it was. Thank you. Um, so, uh, >> through a lot of names, >> right? Um, so anyway, any all this fundraising that they do goes directly towards because we can't there's no guarantee that we'll have that, um, those that transportation paid for again this year. Um, Monday, November 10th, as you know, is our annual Veterans Day breakfast and assembly. Uh, sixth graders did the decorations, seventh graders did the breakfast, and eighth graders did the assembly. Our band of course performed, and our second graders led the pledge of allegiance. Um, and we had about 50 guests uh, visit us that day. So, it was a well attended event. Um, and that evening, Deerfield Family Night at Penrook Academy happened. Jess, I don't know how many how many families attended. >> There were

207around five. >> Okay, good. >> So, >> good. I'm glad I'm glad they were there. Um I know that they worked really hard to make sure that that could happen. Um so now all three schools have provided some sort of um event for our families. On Thursday, November 13th, Chris Van Dusen was our author and illustrator. Ellen, both Ellen and Nancy attended and >> not Oh, Nancy didn't there was two of you. >> One and two. >> It was great. He was wonderful. That's the second time we've had them. those. >> Yeah, those are those are his up there on the >> Yeah, he asked the kids for the name of an animal and >> in like what a minute. >> Yeah. >> Really cool. >> He was really >> I remember when he was

208>> It was excellent. I do want to say thank you for inviting the school board. It was a really special experience. >> I saw that Mrs. David you did the concerts as well. So those are our Tuesday nights. >> Yeah, budget committee. Yeah, we budget. >> No fun for us. >> I came and then I left and I came back by the time I got there and the meeting was over. >> Yeah, I will be late to one of the budget committee meetings actually by >> at least half hour. >> So I will email the chair. Don't worry. >> Um as you just as a reminder um Mrs. She pays for the our visiting authors through the book um the readath fund that we do every spring during read across America. So she raises a

209lot of I shouldn't say she does the students raise a lot of money and that's um the benefit. On Saturday, November 15th, we had our turkey truck fundraiser that benefited our sixth graders in their overnight trip to Mer Vista in the spring. On Monday, November 17th, we had a Sunshine Committee craft afternoon where our staff uh created the Thanksgiving centerpiece together. Um Tuesday, November 18th, our middle school took a field trip to the Capital Center for the Arts to see The Giver. Uh our sixth graders read that novel. Our seventh graders remember that novel and hopefully our eighth graders do, too. Uh it was a one-man show. Mr. Griev attended. >> Yeah. Very impressive. >> Yeah. Different. It was very different. The kids >> one person on the stage the whole time. Wow. >> Most

210of the kids enjoyed it >> and it was a woman. It was a woman. >> So, it's so great for them to have that opportunity because, you know, a lot of them have never been to a professional theater and it's so great that you guys continue to do that. >> Sounds awesome. >> Uh, Wednesday, November 19th, we had SAU leadership as you know, we meet every month. Um, this month was at Three Rivers and actually Andra presented um for student services and some wonderful resources that she has collected over the years. Uh Friday, November 21st, our UNH um our course of band students attended the UNH band extravaganza. That's something that they've done for many, many years. Uh so Mr. Trong and Mrs. Davis bring band students. It's such a great opportunity for them to

211see what their what their career in music could be if they kept going with it at the college level. Um Monday, November 2 games. >> Yeah. Yes. Uh Monday, November 24th, our fifth graders did their calendar unveiling. This is also another long time long-standing tradition here. Uh we have three themes this year. They did a calendar on the New England's great outdoors. They did a calendar on musical months and they did a calendar on the ocean. So every month is a the students do research and do a big writing project. It's uh very consuming throughout the course of the year. Calendars are $7 and they do support again their Boston field trip as well as buses to Starbase. Yeah, they used to say usually she would have them hanging up in here. I can bring

212them next time. >> Where are they being sold? >> Um, the students are selling them. They have a it's a whole business that they've set up. So, if you're interested, please contact a fifth grader. >> They they take it very serious. All the different committees for it. >> Yeah, it's quite the production. Mhm. >> Tuesday, November 25th, ended our first trimester. Uh just for FYI, workbook cards will go home next Friday, December 12th. Um and trimester 2 has begun. Uh we also had on Tuesday right before Thanksgiving and our monthly all school meeting our sixth graders hosted fifth grade three shared and I thank uh superintendent Bitford for joining us that day. Uh it was fun. Um also that day our fifth graders did take a trip field trip to the call Shepard Discovery Center.

213Um, middle school had a pep rally. Was a student for staff volleyball game. I'm pretty sure staff won. >> Staff did win. >> Crushed them. >> And there was crying. >> Not the staff. >> Not the kids. >> The kids dressed in their class color. So, sixth grade was yellow, white, and blue for eighth grade. Um, and in between the volleyball matches, there was some minute to win a game with pizza, something with pizza muffins. It was hard to tell what they were doing. Um, Thanksgiving break. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. And as we begin December, trimester 2 began on Monday, December 1st. Tuesday, December 2nd. Well, that was yesterday was when I wrote this um, and submitted it. We were supposed to have a basketball game. Um, but uh, we had had

214our first snow day. >> So, we do have a game tomorrow. The boys will be playing at Nottingham and the girls will be playing at home against Nottingham. Um, some upcoming events for you to be aware of. This Saturday, this is a PTO update. Um, our kid, it will be a PTO crafts fair, kids crafts fair. Entrepreneurs, kids have been making crafts and um, all kinds of things, earrings and dice and I mean they're just they're it's amazing what they've been putting together. Um, so that will be in the cafeteria this Saturday from 10 to 12. You're welcome to stop by. Uh, Tuesday, December 9th, our band and chorus winter concert will happen for our fifth through 8th grade. Monday, December 15th is CRB meeting. I make sure to add that for you, Ellen. And

215Tuesday, December 16th, will be our holiday conference for grades 1 through four. Thank you so much. >> Okay, superintendent report. >> Um, no, it was I was going to say you guys might want to table it. It's very lengthy and I added it in today. >> Um, so you did not miss anything. That was uh me. So there's very lengthy reports with lots of detail. So I would like table it next time so you guys have time to go through that and read it. Um, and then I can go over that real quick next time. >> All righty.formational items. Is there anything else about the school law? >> Um, so I so I have the article to it's going to go in the next edition. I contacted Dana, but she can't get it in until

216January one. So what we did is we took we just took the date out. >> So we figured if people volunteer and we don't have enough people, we'll just get more people. But I do have a question. Um, there are no emails for any of the chairs now on the website in Deerfield. >> What? >> The town of Deerfield. So, I wanted to send the information to, you know, the chair select chair and the planning board. >> You can email us. They're all gone. >> You can I'm going to speak for the town administrator. So, >> I was going to talk to Karen last night and then we had the storm. So the budget meeting >> but I guess I'll just call >> I would call her or just ask her to distribute to >>

217that's what I was saying I think. >> Yeah. Nothing. So yeah just the name >> the there was a total revamp of the town website. >> Okay. All right. I'll do that. I will contact her tomorrow. >> It also lists like me as still as a member of zoning. >> How do you know you're on zoning? I I was at one point. All right. Um policies first read J. >> Can I ask a question about that? Is there um about this the the committee format? So, do we have a date that we're um expecting people to sign up by? >> Yeah. Well, the the one that's going out in Arrow's letter will say by the end of the year. Dana is not going to put a date just because hers is going out until January,

218but we're hoping to get a committee together at least in January. So then we can start meeting. >> So how who do people contact? >> Yes. >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah. >> Maybe we can make a post on on our >> Yes. Yes. Will you send me the blurb? >> Yep. >> I'll put it on Facebook. >> Yeah. Because I had a few people ask me like where they sign up. >> Oh, sure. Okay. I thought about this the other day while I was driving and then did nothing. >> Yeah, folks can just send me an email with their interest and I'm going to just create a sheet and I'll share that with Ellen. >> Yeah, I mean we do want to try to limit it to about maybe a dozen people and that would

219be including me. But >> yeah, just because it's too many people >> you guys you guys are gonna represent us. Missy and I are gonna >> um Okay, policies. >> I think it was we needed to do the JJ >> because the other ones are first reads that were just in there. >> So, but the JJ J and JJ >> Jr. JJR, we're not I that didn't propose any. >> Yeah, this is the same. >> So, it was just the JJ >> and I think unfortunately my computer just died. But um I think the big thing we wanted to talk about was um >> whether you want to charge families, >> what we want to charge families. And then the other question was the way you have it written right now is just seventh and

220eighth grade. And so we want to have that discussion about do we want >> grades? >> And then there was a thing in the drive just recently to the department of education >> that talked about all of it too. >> Yeah, I put that in there. >> So um did you mention or did I hear from other sources that the there's going to be more guidance coming out about this? Yeah, there were the state I believe said that they were going to be putting out like a formal um I forget what they call it, but like a formal memo essentially about um this policy and the EFAs and how schools can either what school's options are around EFAs and their school programming. Got it. So, we could accept this but then potentially change it. >>

221Yeah. I mean, you guys could amend policies at any time. So, >> absolutely fine. >> Or we could just wait until that comes out. >> We would. Yeah. I mean, I think one question would be if we were to implement this policy, when would it be for like next fall or >> probably next fall? >> Well, if you implement the policy, it's after, >> right? So, then what do we do about that? Unless you put in there to start fiscal year 26 27th or >> school year school year. >> So it might be better to hold off so that we have it the way we want it and it'll be ready for next year for the next school year. >> Whatever your pleasure is. >> Yeah. >> I'm just thinking I mean we might have

222kids that are coming taking classes right now but that heavy I don't know. >> I'm not sure that we do. >> Yeah. Unless Miss Wy knows of a handful, >> but I don't I mean I just don't know how we would even know that though. >> Well, so students who receive EFA, so EFA is its own category like like home school, like charter school, like public school, it's its own category of education. So we would know if a student was here receiving any FA. But if they were just saying that they were a homeschool student and they were saying we'd want to come take art or homeschool student, I we wouldn't be able to really verify whether or not they were receiving it. But >> we can there's a list. >> Okay. Yeah. >> And

223if if they if families are caught, right, it's like kids that are applying to take classes after school. Is that part of the normal procedure? I mean, students that are homeschooled, receiving home programs, are able to attend like a class or a club or things like that. >> I'm saying if they sign up Yep. >> Is it part of the school's process to check that list? >> Not now. But I wouldn't even count on that list. It's they they're changing every time what information they're sharing with us, right, around EFAS. So I wouldn't want to bank on a list because they may not have a list to share with us at some point. Um so right so my yeah >> right so my proposal in the policy is that >> people would have to attest

224to whether or not they have applied for or received >> EF right funds. >> Right. >> So >> because essentially they can get in trouble and have to pay back those funds if they are double dipping essentially. >> Correct. So, >> so my my edits to the proposals are in red. >> Yeah. I mean, I don't have any problems with your I think your edits are good, but I just want to make sure everybody was aware of what it was. And then the other thing was I don't know if it should just be seventh and eighth. That was my >> concern. Yeah. So the current policy states that I mean mimics the law which says that homeschool students have free access to public school curricular and co-curricular activities. >> Um my edits are clarifying that

225EFA students are a separate educational pathway than home education students. >> Correct. and so that um they can attend our curricular courses, but they'll have to pay for them if they're in seventh and eighth grade, which the reason I did that was because for home education students, we can get a partial like a 0.15 um credit from the state for them taking our classes. So if a seventh grade student takes uh a math class or something, we can apply to the state to get funding for that and it's.15 >> of the adequacy grant. >> Is it only for seventh and eighth grade? >> Yeah. >> Oh, so if you have a like a fifth grader come and take art, there's >> correct. >> So that's why I did it. Um but obviously EFA and homeschool

226are separate pathways. So they don't have to mirror each other. I just thought it was a place to start that didn't seem arbitrary, >> right? Okay. >> It's just another source of potential revenue. Will we get any? Maybe not. But >> homeschoolers can get EAS, right? >> Yes. But then they're not they're not considered home. >> Okay. That's that's okay. Yeah. Separate category. >> So they are educated at home, but >> but they are ef I need to get somewhere around. So EFA >> educational freedom account >> right but so what is that how is that different from the homeschooling >> becomes a differentation from the state >> they're getting money from the state >> right so so like traditional homeschool students don't get anything just homeschooling >> correct >> as soon as they accept

227EFA funds they get put into a different label from the state and so they they lose some of those rights >> what are those funds like What are those funds used for? >> There's a whole list of approved things that they can spend those funds on from the EFA program. And so they have to utilize the funds for one of those approved activities or vendors. Some public schools can become vendors. Um so they like high schools they could use EFA funds for the programming here, right? For instance, >> or they could buy materials from off Amazon, >> right? >> Or for whatever it is that they're >> or they can buy ski tickets. double dipping. You're kind of them receiving the money for a class and then we're giving that classroom. >> Yeah, >> that

228would be like double dipping and you can get in trouble for that. >> Yeah, it's all it's all convoluted stuff when when when the state starts these new programs that it's working the weeds out as they go along, >> right? I think like I'm not sure that that was the intention of the legislation when it was created, but that has been the interpretation of the department of education that they are completely separate pathways. >> Yeah. >> Um and even like private school is also separate pathway. So there's public school, private school, home education and the >> four different pathway. >> Yeah. >> There's all different rules. We laugh because there's a video and then she says four different pathways like a 100 times. Correct. >> What does charter school fall under? public school. >> Yeah.

229>> Um so I kind of leaning towards wanting to wait to see what that other um >> state guidines >> state guidelines look like and then we can kind of compare it to this >> because if we're talking about implementing something like you're saying for next fall or something, it's not like Okay. I don't think there's a huge rush on it. Right. >> I mean, it is a required policy >> and it is. We have one. >> Yeah. >> Currently that's up to date. We approved it, I think, since I've been on the board. So, um I just I thought because they keep increasing the the amount of students who can qualify for EFA that we should deal with it before like even if it's not a a situation that we deal with now, we

230certainly could next year. >> Yeah. I'm just thinking like this isn't this like it's not going to go into effect until like we wouldn't put this into effect until >> I think that would be very right. So my point is that >> like can we like set a timer just >> as soon as that >> No, you know what I mean it now >> when that other one comes out. >> Yeah. >> Then we put it back. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Hopefully there'll be something out >> this >> and that'll be a good time to change the policy in the summer. But I was saying like, you know, if that new policy say doesn't come out >> like we should address it in spring. >> Yeah. Like should we should we keep it on as

231a fourth reading and then just not move it? Yeah. Just table it until further guidance from the state. >> I think that's right. >> That way it's there. >> We won't forget >> when ones keep coming in. >> Okay. Are we moving the first readings to second readings? >> Yes. There's a very interesting service animal. >> Yeah. >> I know. I know that from the hospitals. You can also bring a mini horse to a hospital. >> Yeah. >> If it's a service animal, not just for funies. >> Okay. Other side. Yes, it is. Okay. Uh back to public comments. Stacy Mariani meeting House Hill Road. Um, thank you for the work you did on the budget. Um, I thought the kids that came forward tonight and spoke were very well spoken and did a beautiful

232job um and represented their school extremely well. And I may have a very different take on this than you do, but um I don't understand why you would use kids to beg for teachers jobs. I thought it was really manipulative and inappropriate. You may not see it that way at all, but when you put kids up there saying, "Please don't fire our teachers because we need them. we might fall off a wall or do something else. What happens when a teacher is eliminated? Are they going to feel like they failed? You're putting pressure on them to to advocate for teachers and their positions. It was entirely um just really uncomfortable and um weird that we would do that to kids. It's unhealthy for them. Imagine they may feel guilt, sadness, pressure if a teacher's eliminated.

233If all of a sudden one of their art or music or gym teachers isn't here next year and they got fired, did they fail? They didn't listen to what I had to say. It was just so wrong. The budget and the costs and the positions have nothing to do with kids. They shouldn't know. They just shouldn't know. It's not a discussion to have with them. Um I just I don't understand that. And it was so so uncomfortable and inappropriate. Don't put them in the middle. Don't use them as pawns in the battle of how many teachers we're going to have at the school and and what the cost and the budgets are and whether there's enough art supplies. I mean, I just don't understand that. I I don't um No one's trying to eliminate art

234or music. It's just a matter of whether you can get away with one less teacher. I don't think there's anyone that's come forth to talk about that that would think that they're not um incredibly important to a curriculum and I certainly think that they are monosur monastery classroom preschool through K. So, grades four, uh, ages three, four, five, 23 kids, two teachers. 2020, lower L, grades 1, 2, and three, one classroom, 23 kids, two teachers. Lower L in 2022, 18 kids, two teachers. This is grades 1, 2, and three. One classroom, two teachers. That's Monasuri school. Okay. You're wrong if you think that they don't have more kids in one classroom. 20 to 23 kids, one classroom, two teachers, and the room is silent. So, I know a public school is not a monastery school,

235but there's a lot to be learned. Your own class um school board recommended class size for kindergarten is 15 to 18. That's your own recommendation. So, um it's not that it that it can't be done. Thank you. Thank you, >> Jaclyn Trimmer. Candy Road. Uh that was not my perception of the student presentation at all. So, I just want to speak on maybe a different opinion right now. My son is in middle school here at this school and I know that he is aware of the conversations that we have. Not because we're talking about it to make him feel bad or to use anyone as a pawn, but because we're a community. It's a community school and they're they're not little. They're they're aware. Um, and I I just think it's really unfair to I

236don't know to to make it seem like Mr. McCabe or anybody in the school is using those students as pawns. Those are smart children. We know that. We heard it. They sense what's going on. They know what's going on. I just think making the assumption that they're not speaking from their own opinions or it's something that they feel and want to speak on is just totally doing a disservice to them. Um I I just totally disagree with that. Um I I did have a different comment that is not related to that. Um but I wanted to start by saying that I I love our school and my kids love our school and I'm I'm so thankful for the education and support that they have received at the school and I don't like to focus on

237what the school is is missing really but um you know there are many things that make Deerfield a unique school and I appreciate those things. Um, but as you you talk about the budget and I know it's a very very hard thing to work through and you you make hard decisions and you talk about where to make compromises because um it's not a big deal or they'll be fine. I just wanted to remind you of all of the other things that our kids have already had to do without and had to be fine without. There's no world languages. There's no health class right now for middle school. The teacher quit as you know you talked about. There's no athletic buses. So every time our kids have 3:45 games and they have to be there at

2383:15, parents have to coordinate or leave work early or maybe not go to work at all to get the kids to games. There's no musicals. There's no school plays. The athletic fields are in serious need of improvement. They call it the dust bowl because we don't have we don't have budget to to help fix it. And if you think that we don't go to other schools like Barington that are within our district not like hugely, you know, different than our community and and the kids don't feel it, you're wrong. They feel it. Everything is undersized. We we have the modulars that we purchase now, but they have no running water or bathrooms. We have no afterchool clubs because there's no busing or no teachers to support it. Who doesn't know? These are already things that

239we have to to just get by with. Sorry. Is there anybody else that has to comment? No, I'm just I just have a little more. That doesn't even count the things that we wish we had, right? Um family and consumer sciences, wood shop, robotics, STEM, all the things that other schools offer that they're going to be going to high school with our kids. And so our kids already are lacking those things. And so we already make do and we we already feel those places where things have fallen to the wayside in a default budget or because of compromises or for whatever the reason. And so I just as you're making these decisions, I get it. Taxes are are insane right now and everybody is struggling, but the priority should always be the education. What what

240decisions are we making and how is that benefiting our students? They are already feeling the compromises that we have made. I just thank you. I appreciate all that you do. I know it's a very hard job, but just wanted to share that. >> Thank you. >> Other public comments? Okay. I do just want to clarify that the board did not ask the New Hampshire House of Representatives to come. So, I don't appreciate that. >> Administration didn't either. They they actually wanted they the kids this came from the kids. Y >> um and they have a right to say what they feel. >> Well, I mean it I think it is, you know, just I don't know. It was kind of interesting that that came at this time. I just I I thought that it was

241a little weird, but it definitely seemed like they were, you know, >> well, it came it came at this time on purpose because we had a presentation that showed all the possible things that people suggested for cutting and we had a whole bunch of people coming. It's been a big talk in the community and these kids I think have probably heard it and that's why they wanted to come to say their opinion. So I don't think it was any kind of orchestrated thing from staff or anything. It was the kids themselves who wanted to come and talk about it. That that's what I got. >> Yeah. I didn't I did not know that that they had that they had requested. Yeah. But yes, um the a lot of the things that um she brought up

242about things that we're not offering our kids like health and world languages, those are because those positions couldn't opportun for any other reason that we can't hire for them. World cultures has replaced world languages. Not that that's I would love to see world languages but >> wants to we're not offering it or you know >> that's one of co's biggest thing for our kids that we need language. >> Yeah. So, >> okay. Sorry. What letter? >> J. Um, I'm going to make a motion to go into non-public session pursuant to the HRSA 91-3 section 2 letter J. Second. Okay. >> Nancy. >> Yes. >> Right. Now we have Dr. Hall join us. Okay, great. And you guys are welcome to stay. It's high school issue. So if you don't want to do it, that's fine,

243too.